Brendan Nyhan

New NYT: Is the Roberts Court really drifting left?

From my new Upshot column:

The Supreme Court continued a trend Thursday morning toward making seemingly more liberal decisions. In two important cases, the court’s conservative majority was again split, putting liberal justices in the majority on decisions upholding the legality of certain subsidies to help Americans purchase insurance under the Affordable Care Act and offering legal protection against housing discrimination.

Why are conservatives losing more often? While the justices may have changed their views in some instances, it’s also possible that the types of cases the court is deciding have shifted. What seem like liberal decisions may instead represent conservative overreach.

New NYT: Clinton's campaign not very narrow

From my new Upshot column:

Is Hillary Rodham Clinton running a campaign focused on “secondary, base-ginning issues”?

That’s what Josh Kraushaar of The National Journal argued in a column on Tuesday. He stated that until recently she “has seemed content to energize small slices of the electorate” like blacks and Hispanics with “side issues” like early voting and immigration overhaul while ignoring “an overall message on the economy and national security.” According to Mr. Kraushaar, “she’s getting sidetracked from tackling the central issues that most Americans care about.”

But as John Harwood, a reporter for The New York Times and CNBC, pointed out on Twitter, the idea that Mrs. Clinton is running a “narrow” campaign is rooted in an outdated impression of the nation’s electorate as straight, middle-aged white couples with children (the demographic group of many political journalists).

New NYT: Hillary Clinton and wishful-thinking politics

From my new Upshot column:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign took a beating among some pundits this week for telling the truth: She’s going to employ a strategy focused on a narrow set of the most competitive states.

In other words, she’s running as a modern presidential candidate.

Mrs. Clinton’s statement is what’s called a Kinsley gaffe — taking its name from Michael Kinsley, a journalist who said a gaffe is something true that a politician isn’t supposed to say. By conceding the obvious, she revealed the disjunction between the politics we say we want and the kind we actually have.

New NYT: Debate access and third party candidates

From my new Upshot column:

What is keeping third-party and independent candidates from mounting credible campaigns for the presidency?

According to Level the Playing Field, a nonprofit that is attracting national media coverage, the problem is candidates’ access to televised debates. In a recent ad in The Wall Street Journal, the group blamed the requirement by the Commission on Presidential Debates that candidates have to reach 15 percent in the polls seven weeks before the election to participate: “To break the two-party stranglehold on who becomes president, all they have to do is change one rule, and put an end to the rigged game.”

In reality, changing the debate rules is unlikely to make a third-party or independent candidacy viable, let alone put it on a level playing field with the major party candidates.