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| Most Recent... | | | Democratic Debate | Republican Debate | Third Party Event | Democratic Event | Republican Event | | | Make This Your Home Page! |
Republicans introduce first set of bills for 2017-2018
For more: House of Representatives.
Republican majorities in both chambers elect leadership (and Democrats too)
New members of the 115th Congress are sworn in today, two weeks ahead of the presidential inauguration. The first order of business, for both chambers, is to elect new leadership. Leadership positions are elected by partisan votes, with separate votes for each party's leadership positions. The new Congressional leaders are:
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And if you're wondering who's 4th in line for Presidency after Paul Ryan and Orrin Hatch -- that would be Secretary of State John Kerry, until Trump's Secretary of State nominee gets confirmed. The rest of the Cabinet fills in the line of succession from 5th in line and onwards -- see our Cabinet succession list for details!
| IFFY Awards: Dec. 31, 2016 | |
An IFFY award is a non-partisan condemnation: OnTheIssues doesn't care WHAT candidates' issue stances are -- as long as they HAVE issue stances! At OnTheIssues, we believe that candidates should make clear their issue stances, and if they don't do that, then they should not run for office at all, and if they get elected and still won't divulge their issue stances, that they should resign or be driven from office by outraged constituents. The following candidates comprise our IFFY award recipients for 2016. One of them was elected Governor, and the other four Will be seated in the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2017 -- and we recommend that you write to them demanding that they speak on the issues! |
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| Louisiana Runoffs: Dec. 10, 2016 | |
Winners of the three runoff races:
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| Cabinet nominations: Dec. 4, 2016 | |
Cabinet-level nominations announced:
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| Prediction versus results: Nov. 28, 2016 | |
| CATEGORY | ACTUAL OUTCOME | PREDICTION | STATUS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Presidential electoral counts: | Hillary Clinton 232; Donald Trump 306; Evan McMullin 0 | Hillary Clinton 372; Donald Trump 160; Evan McMullin 6 | Recounts still underway in MI, WI, and PA |
| Party control of U.S. House: | Democrats gain 6 seats, leaving Republican majority of 241-194. | Democrats gain 25 seats, leaving Republican majority of 222-213. | Two runoff elections pending in Louisiana on Dec. 10; both have retiring Republican incumbents |
| Party control of U.S. Senate: | Democrats gain 2 seats, leaving Republican majority of 52-48. | Democrats gain 6 seats, winning Democratic majority of 52-48. | One runoff election pending in Louisiana on Dec. 10 |
| Party control of Governorships: | Republicans gain 3 seats, leaving Republican majority of 34-16. | OnTheIssues made no prediction but it would have been just as inaccurate as above! | One gubernatorial outcome still being contested in courts, in North Carolina |
We predicted that the polls were systemically inaccurate in the Democrats' favor because they discounted get-out-the-vote efforts by Hillary. In fact, the polls were systemically inaccurate in the Republicans' favor because they discounted many voters who would not tell the pollsters their vote.
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| Presidential prediction: Oct. 28, 2016 | |
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| House of Representatives prediction: Oct. 26, 2016 | |
Net result: House control is maintained by the GOP, with a Republican majority of 247-188 slipping to a weaker majority of 222-213.
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| Senate prediction: Oct. 23, 2016 | |
Our state-by-state analysis of the Senate is presented below; we predict a 2-seat majority by the Democrats.
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| Third presidential debate: Oct. 19, 2016 | |
Excerpts and fact-checking from the third debate:
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Well, here's what that really means: NOTHING.
What happens if Hillary is declared the winner on election night and Trump never concedes? NOTHING.
What happens if Trump NEVER accepts the election results? NOTHING.
All of these seemingly important events -- Hillary being declared the winner; Trump calling with a concession speech; the loser "accepting" the election results -- none of these matter one bit. Do you know what the U.S. Constitution says about all of those things? NOTHING.
The Constitution is clear on how presidential elections ACTUALLY work:
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| Second presidential debate: Oct. 9, 2016 | |
Excerpts and fact-checking from the second debate:
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| Vice-presidential debate: Oct. 4, 2016 | |
An estimated 37 million people watched the vice-presidential debate. Our first round of excerpts:
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| First presidential debate: Sept. 26, 2016 | |
An estimated 81 million people watched the first presidential debate. Our first round of excerpts:
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| House prediction: Sept. 20, 2016 | |
Former Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter is running for Congress in Wyoming -- and OnTheIssues predicts that she will win. Some additional coverage of hot Congressional races below -- all of whom are challengers and all of whom we predict will win in November. They are mostly Democrats but we're sticking with our earlier prediction that the Republicans will maintain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. We will cover the rest of the new members of the U.S. House once they are elected in November.
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| Final Senate candidates: Sept. 10, 2016 | |
Former Republican nominee Joe Miller made a late entry into the Alaska Senate race to take on his nemesis Lisa Murkowski; he will bear the Libertarian banner, which was yielded to him from Cean Stevens. At this late date, OnTheIssues considers our Senate candidate list completed -- Joe Miller was a very late exception. The rest of the new entrants below are late primary winners and third-party nominees. OnTheIssues has "closed" the list of candidates so we can spend the rest of the election providing deeper coverage of the candidates we are covering.
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| Senate prediction: Aug. 31, 2016 | |
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The mainstream media is full of reports of how the U.S. Senate might turn Democratic,
because national polls or prediction models
show that Democrats are ahead, perhaps by enough to make up the 4-seat deficit they currently suffer.
That
sort of
prediction is
ridiculous.
Smart voters know that national polls are irrelevant to individual Senate races -- the only way to analyze Senate races is by making predictions in individual states. We at OnTheIssues.org have done the state-by-state analysis, which we present below, followed by our scoring criteria (below our House prediction) so you can apply your own analysis later.
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| House of Representatives prediction: Aug. 23, 2016 | |
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The mainstream media is full of reports of how the U.S. House of Representatives might turn Democratic,
because national polls or a generic ballot
show that Democrats are ahead, perhaps by enough to make up the 30-seat deficit they currently suffer.
That
sort of
prediction is
ridiculous.
Smart voters know that national polls are irrelevant to individual House races -- the only way to analyze House races is by making predictions in individual districts. Just about everyone in the mainstream media is too lazy or too ignorant to undertake that analysis, because it is hard work. We at OnTheIssues.org have done the district-by-district analysis, which we present below, followed by our scoring criteria so you can apply your own analysis later.
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| Mike Pence vs. Tim Kaine On the Issues: Aug. 8, 2016 | |
OnTheIssues has published on Amazon our issues-based coverage of the vice-presidential candidates in comparison to the presidential candidates. A sample:
| On International Issues | Tim Kaine | Hillary Clinton | Donald Trump | Mike Pence |
| Pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens | strongly favors | favors | strongly opposes | strongly opposes |
| Support & expand free trade | favors | mixed opinion | opposes | strongly favors |
| Support American Exceptionalism | strongly opposes | opposes | favors | strongly favors |
| Expand the military | strongly favors | mixed opinion | strongly favors | strongly favors |
| Avoid foreign entanglements | favors | opposes | favors | opposes |
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| Democratic National Convention: July 25-28, 2016 | |
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| Republican National Convention: July 18-21, 2016 | |
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| One resignation, one special election, one death: June 9-30, 2016 | |
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| Final Primaries: June 4-7, 2016 | |
Democratic delegates | Republican delegates on June 4,5, and 7:
-------------------- | ----------------------------------------
Hillary Bernie | Donald Ted John Withdrawn Uncommitted
Clinton Sanders | Trump Cruz Kasich Candidates Delegates
California Primary 270 199 | 169 0 0 0 0
Montana Primary 10 11 | 27 0 0 0 0
North Dakota Primary 5 13 |
New Jersey Primary 75 47 | 51 0 0 0 0
New Mexico Primary 18 16 | 24 0 0 0 0
South Dakota Primary 10 10 | 29 0 0 0 0
Puerto Rico Primary 36 24 |
Virgin Islands Caucus 6 1 |
=== === | === === === === =====
Total elected delegates on Final Primary, June 4-7:
430 321 300 0 0 0
Previous elected delegates:
2,144 1,285 966 540 148 209 54
Pledged superdelegates (estimate):
467 27 8 18 4 47 106
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Grand Total: 3,041 1,633 1,274 558 152 256 160
Capture point: 2,383 delegates needed; 1,237 delegates needed to capture the nomination.
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| Libertarian Party Convention: May 28-29, 2016 | |
The pair form a political team of two former Republican governors that Johnson declared to be the most formidable third-party ticket in the modern era, one that he promised would thrust Libertarians from the fringe of American politics to �major party status� in a period of widespread mistrust of both the Republican and Democratic parties.
With Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton registering as two of the least liked and most mistrusted politicians in the country, many Libertarians see an opening � and a desire � for an alternative. And Johnson is the only other candidate likely to appear on the ballot in every state.
Raising more money is supposed to be the big advantage of selecting Weld, who served as a fundraiser for Mitt Romney. �He really likes fundraising and he�s connected,� Johnson said. �And I really hate fundraising and I�m not connected.�
Their goal, in particular, is to loosen the wallets of the many disaffected and libertarian-leaning Republicans turned off by Trump�s bombastic rhetoric and shifting policy stands by offering them an alternative of two former Republican governors.
Most potential financiers of a Libertarian ticket understand the goal isn�t so much to win the White House but to spread their limited government, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, anti-war, pro-drug legalization message into the national consciousness.
�There�s no question that both Trump and Clinton are polarizing but for people to choose Gary Johnson they need to know that he�s running,� said Roger Stone, who advised Johnson�s Libertarian bid in 2012 and is now a supporter and informal adviser to Trump. �Four years ago, 75 percent of the voters told us they wished there was another choice. Well, there was another choice it�s just that nobody knew about it.�
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