Politics

This Election Day, the potential impact of African-American voters is making headlines. The New York Times and The Nation recently reported that mobilizing black voters is the key to winning. And the data from 2008, 2010 and 2012 are clear: When black Americans vote, we determine elections. One voting bloc that will hold considerable sway…

Too many of us think that since the president isn’t on the ballot in 2014, Tuesday’s midterm election doesn’t matter. But it’s time to get rid of this misconception for the last time. Pollsters and prognosticators are speculating that African Americans won’t turn out, but this election has more at stake than the election of…

Black women went to the polls in record numbers in 2012, registering and voting at a higher rate than any other group of voters. In 2014 they’ve set another record: More black women are making bids for national and statewide elected office this year than ever before. According to a recent analysis, 30 black women…

Questions have been raised in Ferguson, Mo., about the role of that state’s senior U.S. senator: Did either Sen. Claire McCaskill or her staff communicate to the Department of Justice that it should end its Ferguson investigation after the local grand jury ends its own? It’s been widely speculated that the St. Louis County grand jury—empaneled by…

In the ongoing saga of the estimated 40,000 voter-registration applications that went missing in Georgia, Brian Kemp, the secretary of state, initially said that he processed the missing applications and that the registrants (who are predominantly black and Hispanic) were now on the rolls and would be able to vote on Election Day. However, a new Al-Jazeera report suggests that the issue is…

Republican election officials in some states have been cracking down on what they believe is massive voter-fraud activities under way in some districts. The officials are championing the Interstate Crosscheck program—an initiative that allows states to crosscheck their voter-registration files to see which individuals are registered to vote in more than one state and which individuals have, in fact, voted…

If the commercial breaks between your must-watch shows are clogged with silly attack ads or your street is lined with yard signs, chances are you’re finally realizing an election is coming. Only five days away, we’re in the final stretches of some of the bloodiest (metaphorically speaking) political campaigning in recent memory as Democrats and…

Less than one week before the midterm elections, President Barack Obama has, in many parts of the country, become the man who wasn’t there. Swing-state Democrats are afraid to mention his name in public, and consultants are cringing over interviews in which Obama has proclaimed that the upcoming election represents a referendum on his administration’s…

Not so fast, Democrats. You don’t have young voters in the bag. A new Harvard University poll reveals that slightly more than half of young Americans (ages 18-29) who say they’ll definitely be voting in the upcoming midterm elections are planning to vote red. That’s right—for the Republicans. “The new survey, released Wednesday, found a preference for Republican…