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Key Test Looms for South Africa’s Coalition, New DA Leader Warns
The new leader of South Africa’s second-biggest political party expects the stability of the nation’s coalition government to be put to the test when its larger rival holds internal elections next year.
Nish Kumar on racism, technology, and politics in comedy show at McCarter Theatre
Staff writer for The Prospect Annika Plunkett reviews Nish Kumar's politically-focused comedy show at McCarter Theatre.
The Message Man: Ferraro Award Winner Matt Corridoni ’13 Helps Political Campaigns Connect
Forty years after Geraldine Ferraro ’56 became the first woman nominated for vice president by a major political party, Kamala Harris mounted her own ba...
Zohran Mamdani celebrates ‘pothole politics’ in a raucous rally marking 100 days as NYC mayor
Having just marked his first 100 days as New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani told a roaring crowd of supporters, city workers and political allies his administration has already delivered evidence a democratic socialist can, in fact, govern.
Infantino’s FIFA: Ten years of power, politics, and so-called ethics
Gianni Infantino promised reform, transparency, accountability, and a “new FIFA.” Ten years on, Infantino’s FIFA is instead defined by political proximity, weakened scrutiny, and an increasing alignment with state power at the highest levels.
Adam Kinzinger visits Tufts to discuss US politics, a look into the future
Members of the Tufts community sat in a packed auditorium on Wednesday evening while former Congressman Adam Kinzinger reflected on a decision that solidified his reputation and legacy within the American political sphere.
Northern Poll: Ohioans prioritize political civility despite future uncertainty
Ohioans find political incivility unacceptable but differ on optimism for the future.
Bruce Springsteen's former drummer pushes back on the Boss's political attacks on Trump: 'Gotta have respect'
Bruce Springsteen's former drummer Vini Lopez speaks out against the Boss's anti-Trump rhetoric, saying everyone should respect the president.
Paul W. Smith: Are friends avoiding political talk about Trump and Iran?
A childhood friend's note sparks a question: Are people avoiding political discussions about Trump and Iran with friends?
Minnesota politics: Previewing governor's race, Iran war impact | FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul
Political analyst Blois Olson takes a look ahead to what could be the most expensive legislative race in Minnesota history. He also examines how the war in Iran could impact voting choices in rural areas.
PhD Alumni Jessie Croteau Wins WPSA’s Environmental Political Theory Paper Award
Dr. Jessie Croteau, who received her PhD in 2025, was awarded the 2026 Environmental Political Theory Best Paper Award at the Western Political Science Association (WPSA) for her paper “In Praise of Decay, Toward a Politics of Compost”. This award is given to the author of the best paper in environmental political theory presented at...
Fallout from Eric Swalwell scandal grows as lawmakers eye House expulsion votes
The political crisis surrounding Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell is rapidly escalating into a broader bipartisan showdown that could reshape the makeup of the House.
Scottish election 2026: Party leaders to go head-to-head in debate
The leaders of six political parties face questions from a live studio audience at Paisley Town Hall.
Times Opinion: Let’s expel toxic right-wing politics from the Hamilton County Board of Education
Within national politics, we are living in a world dominated by a toxic political environment. While that is severely toned down at the local level, it does seep through into one realm: our schools.
Minnesota politics: Previewing governor's race and Iran war impact | FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul
Political analyst Blois Olson takes a look ahead to what could be the most expensive legislative race in Minnesota history. He also examines how the war in Iran could impact voting choices in rural areas.
Hacking women's political underrepresentation, Dutch-style
Some 504 women were elected in recent Dutch local elections, with a "Vote for a Woman" campaign boosting their chances to gather preferential votes. Despite the record figure, women remain underrepresented.
Cuba leader says island will ‘resist’ U.S. threats, refuses to release political prisoners
“I have no fear. I am willing to give my life for the revolution.”
Cuban leader does not commit to releasing political prisoners amid U.S. demands
In an exclusive interview with Meet the Press, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel is asked whether he is willing to commit to meeting key U.S. demands, including releasing political prisoners and scheduling multi-party elections.
Tips on how to handle politics in the workplace in Iowa
The bottom line: Iowa’s private employers have wide latitude to regulate political activity at work.
Key South African Coalition Member Gets New Leader as Vote Looms
The second-biggest political party in South Africa’s ruling coalition appointed a new leader as it gears up to contest municipal elections that look set to reshape the country’s political landscape.
Kansas City small business needs uniform tobacco regulation across Missouri
When every municipality can impose its own rules, store owners are at the mercy of whichever way the political winds are blowing. | Opinion
Volcanic Ash: Voters running for cover as the political f-bombs fly
Who knew Hawaii U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono was a trendsetter during the first Trump administration when she started conducting political discourse in vulgar language that almost got her mouth washed out with soap?
Minneapolis public safety debate back in a familiar place: anger, political squabbling
The Minneapolis City Council’s rejection of Mayor Jacob Frey’s public safety commissioner renewed the angry divisions over policing that have characterized city politics in recent years.
Pope Leo for president someday? Don't even think about it
A recent meeting between Pope Leo XIV and Democratic strategist David Axelrod at the Vatican sparks some intrigue and slight political speculation.
Democrats see gas prices as a potent political tool. Here’s the catch.
President Donald Trump’s attack on Iran sent gas prices surging, giving Democrats’ focus on affordability more traction if they can get voters to trust them.
Bruce Ledewitz: Our politics is a world of unreason
We live in an age of political unreason. Unless we are learn to think more reasonably, especially rejecting our own side’s partisan lies, America...
Former ‘Citgo 6’ political prisoner sees ‘karma’ in Maduro ouster, but Venezuelan oil won’t rebound until there’s true regime change
Former 'Citgo Six' captive sees democratic elections as the only way to build international business trust in Venezuela again.
Home rule has protected Colorado cities for more than 125 years
Colorado is currently gripped by a political struggle. It’s one between the governor and state legislature in Denver on one side and populous “home rule” city governments, mainly on the Front Range — such as Colorado Springs. The state legislature in the past few years has been passing bills that applied to city government policies, […]
Christmas Vacation and Congress: 'We're all in misery' amid the ongoing DHS shutdown
Fox News' Chad Pergram discusses Congress' prolonged DHS shutdown and the risky tactics associated with it as political divisions threaten deeper government funding crises.
Politics: Iowa gubernatorial race shifts to 'toss-up'
The nonpartisan political prediction source Cook Political Report has classified Iowa’s 2026 gubernatorial race as a “toss-up” ahead of this November’s midterms.
Insider: Why are politicians cursing so much lately?
“I think that it is simply because it’s accepted,” one political science professor said of the trend of increased public cursing by politicians.
RFK Jr. Once Touted Raw Milk. Now He’s Stopped Talking About It.
The health secretary has instead promoted whole milk, a politically safer choice, as he seeks to avoid “weird stuff.”
Defiant Swalwell still sees a path to victory in governor's race
So far, Swalwell is casting the allegations against him as a political conspiracy to take down the frontrunner for the governor’s office.
Jerry Demings continues to lag behind David Jolly in fundraising race for Democratic gubernatorial nomination
The former Republican has a five-to-one financial edge over the Central Florida political veteran.
Iraq parliament elects Kurdish politician Nizar Amedi as president
New president pledges 'Iraq First' after securing 227 votes, ending five months of political deadlock.
“AI polls” are fake polls
A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.
Peru holds presidential election amid a decade of political tumult
In the span of a decade, Peru has seen nine presidents come and go. How has that affected this year's presidential race?
Iraq elects Kurdish politician Nizar Amidi as president amid war fallout
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s parliament voted Saturday to elect Nizar Amidi, a political official with one of the country’s two main Kurdish parties, as president, five months after a parliamentary election that didn’t produce a bloc with a decisive majority.
Hungary’s Viktor Orban struggling for political survival ahead of vote
Hungarian prime minister and his Fidesz party face first closely contested polls in Sunday's parliamentary election.
OPINION: Gen Z’s political frustrations are causing an analog counterculture
Gen Z’s frustrations with political polarization and life in the digital world have led to a new counterculture. In seeking to divert from the mainstream, they have popularized rock music, tangible media, and analog systems. This pattern is as old as time, though its most unique aspect is the technological regression in the effort to be more present.
What does American politics look like beyond Trump?
Introducing America, Actually — a new kind of political podcast for a country redefining itself.
Colorado Politics calendar Apr. 13-19
CoPo’s weekly political calendar will help you find political and public-policy events throughout Colorado. It includes candidate and issue campaign events, public policy meetings, court hearings, state and local party conventions, assemblies, debates, rallies, parades, speaking engagements, traveling dignitary appearances, water meetings, book signings, county commission hearings, city council meetings and more. As a subscriber, […]
How Congress’s bipartisan high point led to our era of political rancor
36 years ago, a Republican president and Democratic lawmakers produced monumental laws. Now, a broken Congress has enabled Trump to undo key parts of that legacy.
Vance, who wasn’t keen on Iran war, now tasked with trying to end it
The weekend’s peace talks in Islamabad mark Vance’s highest-profile assignment as vice president, with concomitant political risk.
Trump, sounding like Biden, says he deserves more credit
America’s last two presidents have spent years as political foils. Both feel the American public does not give them enough credit.
Peru's election: A battle for the Presidency amid political chaos and crime
With 35 candidates in the race, Peru is set to elect its 9th president in less than a decade. Amid rising corruption and crime, voters are left asking: Can this election finally break the cycle?
Trump likes to back winners in foreign elections. The upcoming vote in Hungary will test his clout
Donald Trump has made a public flex of his political influence abroad on a scale that few, if any, U.S. presidents have, trying to marshal power he’s used domestically to sway races around the world
Trump likes to back winners in foreign elections. The upcoming vote in Hungary will test his clout
Donald Trump has made a public flex of his political influence abroad on a scale that few, if any, U.S. presidents have, trying to marshal power he’s used domestically to sway races around the world.
Fallout of War Piles Economic Pain Onto Europe’s Political Stress
Europe is finding itself on the outs with Russia, China and the U.S., in what’s amounting to its very own “Mean Girls” moment.
Political analysts break down Trump's visit to Charlottesville
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) — President Donald Trump made a brief and tightly controlled visit to Charlottesville on Friday, attending a private fundraiser at Trump Winery as he works to
Hungarian election could end Orbán's grip on power and alter Europe's political landscape
Trump Moves Top Aide James Blair to Political Operation Ahead of Midterms
Mr. Blair will “lead the charge from the outside,” the president said on social media. The move comes as Republicans are bracing for a potentially difficult November election.
Trump Moves Top Aide James Blair to Political Operation Ahead of Midterm
Mr. Blair will “lead the charge from the outside,” the president said on social media. The move comes as Republicans are bracing for a potentially difficult November election.
Galas honoring political strategist and scholar Bob Shrum raise nearly $1 million for USC Dornsife center
The events featured appearances by John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Reince Priebus and other prominent figures.
Acting CDC director delayed release of study showing benefit of Covid vaccines
An HHS spokesperson said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya had concerns about the paper’s methodology. Some current or former CDC employees worry about political interference.
Pro-Palestinian activist refuses to condemn political violence after threat against her is foiled
After a Molotov cocktail plot against a pro-Palestinian activist was foiled, Nerdeen Kiswani refused to condemn political violence, blasting Zionist aggression.
Update on Proposed Dissolution of SBE Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF) -
On Friday, April 3, 2026, it was reported that interim leadership at the National Science Foundation announced during an internal all-staff meeting that they would preemptively start making moves to dissolve the SBE Directorate in [...]
How Political Differences Can Affect Golf Players Concentration on the Links and Beyond
A new study suggests political differences among golfers can affect concentration on the links—and perhaps in the workplace as well.
Crowd chants ‘Run again!’ to Kamala Harris, who said she’s ‘thinking about it’
The former vice president’s statement at a Black political convention was one of her most explicit signals yet that she could campaign again for president in 2028.
From politics to punches: Biden Jr challenges Trump sons to cage fight
US politics already feels like a contact sport, but one of Washington's most bitter political feuds may literally be headed to the mat after former president Joe Biden's son challenged
NMSU political science students present at national research conference
New Mexico State University undergraduate students in the Department of Political Science, Public Law and Administration presented their research at this year’s Pi Sigma Alpha National Student...
NMSU political science students present at national research conference
New Mexico State University undergraduate students in the Department of Political Science, Public Law and Administration presented their research at this year’s Pi Sigma Alpha National Student...
Letters to the Editor: Anyone with political aspirations should be fighting to stop Trump
'Everyone knows President Trump is out of control, and yet Congress and the Supreme Court sit back and watch as we circle the drain,' writes an L.A. Times reader.
Former members of Congress visit Rice to discuss politics, public service and civil dialogue
Students at Rice had the opportunity to engage directly with former members of Congress from different political parties during a two-day campus visit that emphasized civil dialogue, public service and the role of politics in everyday life.
Whole Hog Politics: Vance’s Hungarian gambit
[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Join us today at 9 a.m. EDT at TheHill.com as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a live online audi…
Steyer wants to end the ‘Trump tax loophole.’ Here's what that means
Tom Steyer’s promise to “reverse the Trump tax loophole” if elected California governor relies on a lot of wishful thinking, political columnist Joe Garofoli writes.
The US in Brief: The Pentagon’s battle against free speech
Our daily political update, featuring the stories that matter
Gen Z's political alienation drives rise in extremism
Gen Z’s pandemic scars, social-media isolation and disordered home life have eroded trust in the American social contract, increasing disaffection and political extremism.
The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
Immigration board denies Mahmoud Khalil's appeal
Khalil said he was not surprised by the ruling, which he called “biased and politically motivated.”
KAMIKURA: Weaponization of religion in U.S. politics
In the U.S. Constitution, written in 1787, the founders did not mention any god. In god's absence on paper, the founders reinforce the separation of church and state. The First Amendment, passed in 1789 and ratified in 1791 in the Bill of Rights, states that Congress may not do anything to legislatively restrict the free practice of religion. But in the current political climate, the state and church are becoming increasingly intertwined.
Op-ed: You don’t have to major in business because your dad told you to
I’m a second-year student at Northeastern, and I’ve already changed my major four times — twice last semester. I know that sounds stressful, kind of scary and like I have no idea what I want to do with my life. But currently, my major is combined political science and journalism, and despite the changes I...
IT rules: India proposes new digital rules to regulate news and political posts on social media
The changes will give government more power over news-related posts shared by podcasters and influencers.
When and why political leaders polarise rhetoric: Evidence from Twitter/X
Standard theories of electoral competition predict that politicians should converge toward the centre as elections approach. This column challenges this prediction, using 3.4 million tweets from 367 political leaders across 21 Western democracies. Rhetorical polarisation between populist and non-populist leaders rises sharply in the two quarters before an election and reverts to average levels once it is over. Both groups adopt a more emotionally direct communication style as elections near, but they increasingly talk about different topics. The findings suggest that social media turns electoral campaigns into an engine of political polarisation.
Candidate security costs up in era of political violence: Research
Federal campaigns and committees have spent more than $100 million on security measures over the past decade amid an uptick in threats of political violence, including bomb threats and doxxing, acc…
In this era of political violence, candidate security costs are higher, new report says
Security spending for congressional and presidential campaigns has jumped fivefold over the past decade as an increasingly hostile political environment has led to escalating threats against public officials, ranging from doxing to assassination plots, according to a report released Thursday.
Melania says her piece about Epstein – doth the lady protest too much?
The first lady unleashed a barrage of denials – and put one of her husband’s biggest political liabilities back on the agenda
Trump and his party confront the political perils of chaos: From the Politics Desk
Plus, what Democratic voters in two states with key Democratic primaries are looking for.
Cuban president urges US dialogue without conditions of political change
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told NBC News that the country has asked U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to engage in dialogue without demanding changes from Cuba's political system or imposing other conditions, the network said on Thursday.
Iran war tests Trump’s most enduring political gifts
The Iran war is ending. Or so the White House says. The last-minute ceasefire this week in a conflict that has convulsed capitals from Washington to Brussels to Tehran has left several key issues up in the air. What does it mean politically? And will it last?
UNC chancellors sidestep political questions at forum on challenges facing higher education
At a forum on challenges facing higher education, UNC chancellors mostly dodged pointed questions about budgets and Trump.
How national political analysts see the Wisconsin Supreme Court race
J. Miles Coleman from Sabato's Crystal Ball said far different results in Washington and Ozaukee counties could mark the end of the "WOW" grouping.
A record-breaking field: What to expect from Peru’s presidential election?
Crime and corruption are top issues for voters as the country struggles to cope with persistent political instability.
How Teach for America Helped Set Up James Talarico’s Political Rise
The prestigious education group is more than a shiny resume item. For the Democratic Senate candidate, it was an incubator for his rapid political ascent.
I swore an oath to the Constitution, not a political party
This solution in search of a problem will come at great cost; closed primaries will cost the state more than $135 million over 10 years, according to the Secretary of State’s estimate.
Political oversight reaches Texas college classrooms, with Texas Tech and A&M at the forefront
Public universities across Texas have instituted sweeping changes to course teachings and offerings in recent months, in a bid to appease concerns from Republican lawmakers that they're indoctrinating students with what they consider to be liberal ideas.
ULM Political Science faculty and students participate in state meeting
Political Science faculty and graduate students from the University of Louisiana Monroe recently participated in the Annual Meeting of the Louisiana Political Science Association (LPSA), held Friday, February 27, at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, La.
ULM Political Science faculty and students participate in state meeting
Political Science faculty and graduate students from the University of Louisiana Monroe recently participated in the Annual Meeting of the Louisiana Political Science Association (LPSA), held Friday, February 27, at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, La.
The normalisation of political profanity
Donald Trump isn’t the first politician to sully their office with foul-mouthed rhetoric and it’s catching on with rivals too
The US in Brief: Jaw-jaw, not war-war?
Our daily political update, featuring the stories that matter
Politicians Are Spending More Money on Security as They Increasingly Become Targets
Political candidates are purchasing more home alarms, bulletproof vests, and other protections amid rising fears of political violence.
A shooting shattered their family. Annapolis is playing politics with their grief.
Legislative bumps and political infighting in Annapolis shroud passage of a NyKayla Strawder memorial bill, a teen killed by a 9-year-old with access to his grandmother's gun.
‘The nuclear button for the Vatican’: Pope Leo steps into the political fray
The pope has long spoken about injustice in moral terms. This week, Trump’s threats to end “civilization” in Iran prompted him to cross into explicitly political territory — a move Vatican historians call extraordinarily rare.
Democrats Are Obsessed With the Wrong Senate Races
Sherrod Brown and Roy Cooper aren’t driving the political conversation, but their races may ultimately decide the Senate majority.
Iran’s Reality Shatters JD Vance’s Hungarian Fantasy
If what mattered most in the world was the political future of JD Vance, this would be a very good week. The US vice president gave a rousing speech in support of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a model leader for the global conservative right, while at the same time helping his boss toward the off-ramp from an unpopular war with Iran.
Political realism in the era of Donald Trump – Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
Donald Trump’s behaviour lies far outside the bounds of traditional political realism, making it challenging both to conduct and to interpret internati ...
Who Is Funding the 2026 Midterm Elections? A Lot of the Money Is Untraceable.
A lot of the money flowing into the political system is ultimately untraceable.
What leading Planned Parenthood is like now
As the political energy around abortion rights shifts, Alexis McGill Johnson is navigating the future direction of the organization.
Italy’s Giorgia Meloni attempts political reset after referendum defeat
Facing voter backlash and an energy-driven economic squeeze, the prime minister is recalibrating her ties with Washington
State election dispute on political speech comes to Supreme Court on interim docket
Lawyers for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, as well as county election officials, urged the Supreme Court on Wednesday to let them go ahead with a ballot that does […]