Pennsylvania's Special Election Gives Pollsters a Sneak Peak Into the 2018 Midterms
There is a special election in Pennsylvania's 18th district Tuesday that could provide a clue as to what we'll see in November. Managing editor of political site Sabato's Crystal Ball, Kyle Kondik, says the party that holds the White House historically pays a penalty down the ballot.
The election comes because Republican Congressman Tim Murphy, who has held the seat since 2003, resigned. Kondik says Congressman Democrat Conor Lamb is culturally a good fit for the district and has out-funded Republican rival Rick Saccone.
Sabato's Crystal Ball rates the race as a true toss-up, which is somewhat shocking, because the district has always been red. Even if the Democrat loses, Kondik says, the fact there is even a tight race shows just how tough November could be for Republicans.
Sabato's Crystal Ball incorrectly predicted, like so many others, that Hillary Clinton would win the presidential election in 2016. Kondik says a lot of pollsters got caught up in Donald Trump's "strange candidacy," but traditional, political science models still have a track record of accurately predicting elections.
Federal health advisers voted overwhelmingly against an experimental treatment for Lou Gehrig’s disease at a Wednesday meeting prompted by years of patient efforts seeking access to the unproven therapy.
Lawmakers probing the cause of last month’s deadly Maui wildfire did not get many answers during Thursday's congressional hearing on the role the electrical grid played in the disaster.
President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that federal disaster assistance is available for Louisiana, which is working to slow a mass inflow of salt water creeping up the Mississippi River and threatening drinking water supplies in the southern part of the state.
A new law in California will raise the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 per hour next year, an acknowledgment from the state's Democratic leaders that most of the often overlooked workforce are the primary earners for their low-income households.
From Sunday, workers at the main United States base in Antarctica will no longer be able to walk into a bar and order a beer, after the U.S. federal agency that oversees the research program decided to stop serving alcohol.
House Republicans launched a formal impeachment hearing Thursday against President Joe Biden, promising to “provide accountability” as they probe the family finances and business dealings of his son Hunter and make their case to the public, colleagues and a skeptical Senate.
The FBI and other government agencies should be required to get court approval before reviewing the communications of U.S. citizens collected through a secretive foreign surveillance program, a sharply divided privacy oversight board recommended on Thursday.
The federal government is just days away from a shutdown that will disrupt many services, squeeze workers and roil politics as Republicans in the House, fueled by hard-right demands, force a confrontation over federal spending.
The Biden administration is finalizing a new rule that would cut federal funding for colleges that leave graduates with low pay and high debt after graduating.
