BALLOT MEASURE BATTLES — On Tuesday, voters in 41 states will decide on a total of 146 statewide ballot measures. That’s up from 116 from the last presidential year in 2020 and down slightly ...

How Smithsonian Curators Visit Political Conventions to Explain the Present to the Future When scholars from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History attend one of these gatherings ...

History can’t fully explain the present or predict the future, but it can help us understand the patterns of contemporary politics and the likely paths ahead.

What is the electoral college? Usually the majority of votes wins. But when it comes to presidential elections, swing states have power.

While that expression of populist resentment might, despite two elitist semi-colons, explain the New Hampshire primary, we think we could do better to explain all of American politics.

For the first time in history, an American sits on the Throne of St. Peter. Pope Leo XIV – born in Dolton, Illinois, and ...

Yet there is more to American politics than what happens in Congress. Away from the federal legislature, 2023 was notable for how many things went right. Take the decline in violent crime.

The torment of Mr McCarthy is easy to explain. But it points to a mystery, one this column will outline but—with apologies—not solve: why is it that each party’s grip on power, once attained ...