Category: Uncategorized

Since the United States Constitution’s ratification in 1789, the country has grown from 864,746 square miles to 3,531,905 through territorial acquisitions.   According to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, the United States has employed three methods of territorial acquisition: Cession refers to a transfer of land that is formally agreed upon…

The Republican National Committee (RNC) outraised its Democratic counterpart by more than two-to-one for the fourth consecutive month in July. At the same time, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) outraised its Republican counterpart for the first time this year, according to campaign finance reports filed with the FEC.   The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee…

A new state legislative special election has been added to our list. The special election is for the District 148 seat in the Texas House of Representatives on November 5, 2019. There is no primary, and the filing deadline is on September 4.

A state government triplex occurs when a state’s governor, attorney general, and secretary of state are all members of the same political party. In states where these officers are not all from the same party, differing political views can bring them into direct conflict with one another.      Three states—Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi—are holding elections in…

Each week, we report the number of pageviews received by 2020 presidential campaigns on Ballotpedia. These numbers show which candidates are getting our readers’ attention.   Andrew Yang’s campaign page on Ballotpedia received 5,656 pageviews for the week of August 11-17. Yang’s pageview figure represents 10.2% of the pageviews for all Democratic candidates during the…

The Federal Register is a daily journal of federal government activity that includes presidential documents, proposed and final rules, and public notices. It is a common measure of an administration’s regulatory activity.   During the week of August 12 to August 16, the number of pages in the Federal Register increased by 3,076 pages, bringing…

In 2019, Ballotpedia published primary competitiveness data following each state’s major-party candidate filing deadline. Five states are holding regular statewide elections: Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi are holding elections for state executive offices, and Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia are holding elections for state legislative seats.   A contested primary is defined as one in…

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) issued three final rules on Monday affecting the implementation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The rules concern interagency cooperation, the classification of threatened and endangered species, the listing and removal of endangered species, and critical habitat designations, among other processes.   The first rule change aims to…

Four states—Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia—are holding regularly scheduled state legislative elections this year for 538 seats. The filing deadline has now passed in all four states. In the races for these 538 seats, 158 (29.3%) do not have a Democratic candidate on the ballot, and another 141 (26.2%) do not have a Republican…

In 2020, all 435 seats in the U.S. House and 34 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate are up for election. Our initial list of battleground races includes 88 of them—15 in the Senate and 73 in the House.   Battlegrounds are elections that we expect to have a meaningful effect on the balance…