Political Crumbs

Former Texas Democratic U.S. Representative Colin Allred announced this week that he will run for the U.S. Senate again in 2026, two years after falling 8.5 points short of unseating incumbent Ted Cruz. Allred is looking to become just the fifth failed Texas U.S. Senate major party candidate – and first Democrat – to win…

Of the 50 current U.S. governors, 17 were not born in the state they serve. Nearly half of Democratic governors (11 of 23) were born elsewhere but less than a quarter of Republicans (six of 27). Three of these 17 governors were born in New York City (Kansas Democrat Laura Kelly and Republicans Patrick Morrisey…

The Minnesota Historical Election Archive, curated by Smart Politics, has been updated with all 2024 special, primary, and general election results as well as candidate biographies for all 2024 hopefuls. The Archive now houses results for nearly 20,700 elections since statehood, or nearly 90 percent of all elections conducted in Minnesota across 17 state and…

Ruben Gallego won Arizona’s Democratic U.S. Senate nomination unopposed on Tuesday night, which has become par for the course for the party in recent decades. Democratic nominees for the office in Arizona have been crowned without opposition on the ballot in five of the last six cycles: Richard Carmona (2012), Ann Kirkpatrick (2016), Mark Kelly…

In Nebraska’s Democratic presidential primary, Minnesota U.S. Representative Dean Phillips came out on top in Logan County, winning five votes to Joe Biden’s four. Logan County is located in the central party of the state where more than 175 voters cast their ballots in the GOP primary. This is not Phillips’ first county-wide victory. Prior…

Due in part to South Carolina’s political parties previously funding their presidential primaries as well as various cycles in which primaries were not held due to incumbents running for reelection, the 2024 cycle is just the fourth time in which the Palmetto State will hold both Republican and Democratic primaries. The 21-day gap between the…

The date of the New Hampshire presidential primary was officially scheduled for January 23, 2024. That is the third earliest date on which the primary in the Granite State has been conducted following the cycles of 2012 (January 10th) and 2008 (January 15th). The only other cycle in which the primary was conducted in January…

With Joe Manchin announcing he will not seek reelection to his U.S. Senate seat, West Virginia Republicans are poised after 2024 to hold all offices elected on a statewide ballot for the first time in nearly 100 years. In 1928, Herbert Hoover topped the GOP ticket in the state with a 17.4-point victory with Henry…

Joe Biden critics have had a field day for the last several months as oft-described ‘fringe’ candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has variously polled in the low double-digits in several state and national surveys. This brings to mind the 1996 reelection bid of Bill Clinton – another Democratic incumbent who did not have to participate…

The next high profile electoral battle (for a technically nonpartisan office) will take place in two months for Wisconsin’s open Supreme Court seat. Over the last 100 years, Wisconsin has held 77 elections to its Supreme Court. Just 16 of these were open seat contests – in 1925, 1949, 1956, 1961, 1963, 1977, 1978, 1979,…