Mark Gettleson is a campaigns and communications strategist. He has written extensively on American and British politics, focusing on long-term electoral trends
Today the Trump administration ends. The first time a President has failed to win re-election since 1992. The first time the Republicans have spent just four years in the White House since 1892. And America’s first President to have been impeached twice. No one, as Donald himself might say, has ever seen anything like it.
Renewed moves to impeach President Trump in his final days in office, following the storming of the Capitol Building, are gathering steam in Washington. To add further to the drama of the past week, Twitter announced yesterday that it was permanently suspending the President. Nancy Pelosi went as far as calling on the chairman of
Senate runoffs are being held today in Georgia, due to a peculiar state law which says that if no candidate gets over 50 per cent of the vote (as neither seat did in November), the top two go on to a second round. It’s the first time ever that two Senate runoffs are being held
In the early hours of Wednesday, with Joe Biden appearing to trail Donald Trump in the key states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, the continuity-Corbyn campaign group Momentum sent out an email on the other side of the pond declaring that ‘today, it is clearer than ever that moving to the political centre is not a
Joe Biden is the President elect. His lead in Pennsylvania is unassailable, such that even if he somehow slipped behind in Arizona, Nevada or Georgia, he will still receive the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. President Trump, however, at the time of writing, continues to dig in. With lawsuits filed in
While many swing states still hang in the balance, it’s Florida that has shifted decisively to Donald Trump. As I hinted on Monday, it was Trump’s surge among the Latino vote in Miami that delivered him the state. The margins are quite astonishing – while Miami-Dade, the state’s most populous county, saw a Clinton win
“Was Red Wedge pro-Labour, or did we just hate Tories?” asked musician Billy Bragg, when he launched his tactical vote site ‘Vote Dorset’ in 2001. He was trying to solve a problem British progressives have faced at every election since the re-emergence of the Liberals as a political force in the 1960s: while conservatives were
Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory stunned the world. It also uprooted the electoral map: Trump won narrow victories in states which had voted Democratic for decades. This year, many forecasters have been keen to stress the unpredictability of an election that may well redefine that map again. Holding an election in a pandemic makes predictions
As we get closer to the American election, Democrats in swing states like Pennsylvania and Arizona are sounding notes of cautious optimism. Others, in Texas and Georgia, are daring to dream that Joe Biden’s national poll lead (mainly driven by suburban women) might flip those consistently red states to their column. In Florida, on the
In the final week of her presidential campaign, with victory seemingly all but assured, Hillary Clinton visited Arizona – a state that had only once voted Democrat since 1948. The trip was later taken as an example of Clinton’s hubris, after she failed to visit Wisconsin thinking it was in the bag, only to end
Imagine that you’re a Tory MP who wants to vote against the government today – and you’re going to be deselected if you do. What do you do about the next general election? Do you stand as a Gaukeward squad independent? Do you do a Phillip Lee and move over to the Lib Dems? Or,
Three things give momentum to a campaign for a presidential nomination in the USA and power it to victory: Expectations. Expectations. Expectations. The only truly memorable moment of Bill Clinton’s 1992 Democratic victory was his New Hampshire primary loss: where his second-place finish surprised the political establishment and lent him the ‘comeback kid’ moniker than
As the first results of the Iowa caucus began to come through, a remarkable prospect dawned on US election analysts. There finally seemed to be a way out of ‘the crazy’ that had dominated the Republican race since early summer, following the launch of Donald Trump’s campaign. And what a nine months it has been:
Few things get transatlantic political geeks revved up like the Iowa caucuses. If, as Clinton strategist Paul Begala put it, politics is ‘show business for ugly people’, then Iowa is our Eurovision – bizarre, extreme and irreverent, with a cult following among a small section of the public to the bafflement of everyone else. Even
On 7th February 2000, for the first time in American history, a First Lady (a sitting one at that) took to the podium to announce her candidacy for public office – a New York Senate bid that would no doubt soon propel her to the White House. And so began perhaps the longest electoral campaign
In the ‘most unpredictable election in a generation’, it’s a fool’s errand to make specific calls. However, it is possible to outline what the political landscape might look like on Friday morning. Throughout election night, there will be an obsession with whether the Conservatives or Labour end up as the largest party, far beyond its actual
The Liberal Democrat resilience in countless marginal seats has confounded many commentators. While perhaps winning half the number of votes as Ukip nationwide, it is far from inconceivable that they will win five to ten times the number of seats. Take Sutton & Cheam, for instance, where despite having a majority of just 1,608 votes, Paul Berstow
An hour and a half watching Ed Miliband debate four people who are not going to be Prime Minister. That is the ordeal you had to go through in order to be qualified to answer Survation’s post-debate poll, which included the ‘sensational’ result that respondents preferred Ed Miliband to David Cameron by 45% to 40%.
Here’s an interesting factoid. We have gone the longest time since any serving Cabinet Minister has lost their seat… ever. Seven were booted out in 1997, most famously Defence Secretary Michael Portillo in Enfield Southgate – an experience shared by just 32 people since 1900. To some extent, MPs from marginals may be less likely
Hendon has a special place in my heart. No really. My parents met there. I mourned when my favourite childhood adventure playground, Kidstop, was burnt to the ground. We even took a primary school trip to its RAF museum and wondered at the marvels of the Battle of Britain. So I felt somewhat nostalgic at
