Campaigns & Elections

Wednesday afternoon, supposed polling genius Nate Silver tweeted that "Turnout was down from 2010 in almost every state." Silver's readers and clients had better hope that Silver is usually better at counting — and analysis (HT Twitchy):

Covering the midterms on election night, Nightline anchor Dan Harris huffed that Senator-elect Joni Ernst's 2014 campaign commercial was "downright bizarre." As the returns rolled in and it became clear that Democrats had suffered massive losses, Harris recapped the year's political commercials and the money behind them: "Most of it spent on a barrage of political ads that ranged from terrifying…

The squeaker of an election between Sen. Mark Warner and Republican Ed Gillespie is not a result that was either foreseen or desired by the liberals at The Washington Post. On September 14, I noted Gillespie's entire campaign was consigned to the back pages of the Metro section. The shamelessly partisan Post wants to publicize nothing that helps Gillespie. This story appeared on page B-4. So…

On Tuesday, former Saratoga Springs, Utah mayor Mia Love become the first black Republican woman in Congress. Politico, overdoing its apparent grief at Tuesday's national results, is acting as if Love won in a walkaway. Alex Isenstadt's pity party post-election report on the Democrats' substantial House losses claimed that Love's was a seat "Democrats conceded long before Election Day." The…

Of the three network morning shows on Thursday, only NBC's Today highlighted Kentucky Senator Rand Paul's viral social media meme, #HillarysLosers, which pointed out that every Democratic candidate that would-be 2016 presidential contender Hillary Clinton campaigned for in 2014 lost in Tuesday's midterm election.     

During his post-election news conference, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was repeatedly pressed by CBS News reporter Nancy Cordes about “a new crop of conservatives coming into the House” who she implied Boehner would have trouble managing. The CBS reporter asked Boehner “so the hell no caucus as you’ve put it is getting bigger and some of them don’t think you’re conservative enough. How do…

On Wednesday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN's Dana Bash pointed the finger at Senator Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans for the "dysfunction" in the federal government. Bash asserted that "Democrats probably rightly have a complaint that the reason the Senate isn't working is because Mitch McConnell and the opposition made it so."

The journalists at Good Morning America on Thursday spun Barack Obama's post-midterm press conference as "taking his medicine," hyping a jokey response by the President about having a drink with Mitch McConnell. On Wednesday night's World News, Jon Karl highlighted Obama's confrontational style, noting, "But [the President] offered no sign that he has a mea culpa or a desire to change course. No…

On election night, the PBS program Charlie Rose had an all-liberal panel to whine about the Democratic Party’s electoral losses throughout the country and complained that President Obama didn’t tout his agenda throughout the campaign season. During the discussion, Bloomberg View’s Al Hunt argued that "this is the most content free election I`ve ever seen. The Republicans basically ran totally…

On Thursday's NBC Today, White House correspondent Chris Jansing blamed Republicans for upsetting the supposed conciliatory mood in Washington following Tuesday's GOP midterm wave: "Well, what looked to be at least a temporary truce between President Obama and Congress lasted less than 24 hours. Republican leaders now say the focus of the new Congress will be to repeal the President's signature…

TVNewser's Mark Joyella spotlighted in a Wednesday post how MSNBC managing editor Ilyas Kirmanireacted with disgust to the reelection of the Sunshine State's attorney general, Republican Pam Bondi. Kirmani posted the word, "Gross," on a Facebook thread started by Miguel Fernandez, an executive producer at CBS's Miami affiliate, WFOR.

President Obama’s problem is that he’s surrounded by sycophants who tell him what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear. That was the post-election analysis of none other than… Chris Matthews?! 

During MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes on Wednesday night, the show’s panel fretted over the droves of Democrats that ran campaigns against President Barack Obama in the midterm elections (instead of embracing him) and that led The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel to wonder if such a tactic affected turnout among certain demographics due to “the dissing of a President.”  Vanden Heuvel first …

On Wednesday's CBS This Morning, co-host Norah O'Donnell fretted that the newly elected Republican Congress would dare to pass legislation: "If you look at a number of these new senators, they're quite conservative. Why wouldn't they go along with what Rand Paul has said? They're gonna send bills up to the President, as he told Charlie Rose last night, 'We're going to keep sending bills up to the…