The Latest Breaking News from Jonathan Bernstein

One of the biggest political stories of 2022 was how the Republican Party fielded an unusually large number of weak candidates for Senate and gubernatorial primaries. Republicans’ failure to elevate candidates with wide appeal cost them dearly in the November midterms, when they bungled potentially winnable contests in Georgia, Pennsylvania…

Here’s another headache for Republicans who don’t want to see Donald Trump as their presidential nominee in 2024: There’s a mechanism that could allow him to get the party’s nomination even if he’s defeated in its primaries and caucuses.

The Republican majority in the House isn’t even two months old, but it’s already clear that Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s attempt to mollify his party’s extremist faction risks hurting the country without guaranteeing the thing he wants most: to keep his job as House leader. There might not be immediate consequences…

Minnesota this month became the latest state to restore voting rights to ex-felons once they are released from prison. Democrats around the U.S. have been pushing to reduce or eliminate restrictions on voting, in particular fighting to extend voting rights to people on parole or probation. Many Republicans have been…

Extremist Republicans didn’t waste time bashing President Joe Biden’s surprise weekend visit to Kyiv. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called the trip “incredibly insulting,” while Florida Republican Matt Gaetz tweeted that Biden was “ditching America for Ukraine.”

The Republican presidential nomination is up for grabs.

Republicans held their first hearing last week of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The session told us a lot about how little to expect from the Republican-led 118th Congress.

At first glance the Republican presidential campaign is shaping up to be bizarrely normal. In a deeper sense, however, it is profoundly bizarre. Of course the reason is former President Donald Trump.

One of the many problems with having former President Donald Trump around is that it becomes extremely difficult to assess normal misbehavior. It’s a significant reminder of how Trump continues to corrupt the nation’s politics.

With the passage of a defense bill and an agreement on a spending package, the 117th Congress is wrapping up an extremely productive two years in office. This Congress, when Democrats held narrow margins in both houses, stands in sharp contrast to the last era of unified control of government,…

Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema declared herself a Marxist on Friday. Not Karl; Groucho. As in, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” She felt compelled to leave the Democrats, she explained, because of the “broken partisan system” and said that she had “joined the…