Latest Stories By Louis Jacobson

One of the most common Republican messages during the 2022 midterm campaigns has been that President Joe Biden is to blame for inflation, which reached a 40-year high during the past year.  Republicans have said, with some justification, that Biden’s spending programs, including his effort to forgive some student loan debt, have fueled inflation by […]

Georgia’s Senate race between Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker has been one of the most closely watched contests in this midterm election. It is considered crucial to determining whether Democrats hold their narrow majority in the chamber or lose it to the Republicans. Many of the accusations in the race […]

President Joe Biden frequently talks about a significant uptick in manufacturing jobs on his watch.  It’s a message designed to play well in the industrial Midwest, where states like Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are hosting a mix of competitive Senate and gubernatorial races in the midterm elections. Biden also seeks to paint his […]

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s speech difficulties during his Oct. 25 Senate debate against Republican Mehmet Oz raised questions about Fetterman’s health following a stroke in May. The issue of a candidate’s health is always sensitive, and we won’t attempt to determine how capable Fetterman would be to serve in the Senate if he wins […]

When voters head to the polls in just two weeks, they may have the year’s roller coaster ride of gasoline prices on their minds. After the coronavirus pandemic sent gas prices plummeting in early 2020, prices rose slowly but steadily for almost two years as the economy recovered, which increased demand through travel and commuting. By the […]

If you’re even a casual television watcher during this midterm season, you will have seen lots of campaign ads. Republican campaign ads target many of President Joe Biden’s policies on student debt forgiveness, taxes, crime, police funding, Medicare, and energy policy. Democratic ads are focused on warnings about abortion restrictions and topics particular to the […]

In what’s expected to be the only debate of the pivotal Senate campaign in Georgia — just before the Oct. 17 start of early voting in the state — the two nominees, incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker, sparred over a variety of topics. During the hourlong debate in Savannah, Walker, an […]

The U.S. House Jan. 6 committee’s unanimous decision to subpoena former President Donald Trump is unusual. But presidential subpoenas are not unprecedented — and the outcomes of prior clashes between the executive and legislative branches provide some context for the tensions surrounding the committee’s Oct. 13 decision. The subpoena noted that 30 witnesses had cited […]

Former president Donald Trump told crowds in Nevada and Arizona that his handling of presidential documents was praiseworthy compared with that of George H.W. Bush, who died in 2018. In his Oct. 8 rally in Nevada, Trump melded references to the former president, a bowling alley, and a Chinese restaurant in an effort to downplay […]

It’s not every day that an American president warns of nuclear disaster and draws on Biblical imagery to do so. But President Joe Biden did just that Oct. 6 when he told Democratic donors the threat of “Armageddon” is higher than it has been in decades. “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy […]

ATHENS, Greece — Dubious news and online content is everywhere. Even here, in the birthplace of democracy. The challenges facing media outlets across the globe are many, including widespread public distrust, dubious claims spreading virally on social media, and a broken economic model for the news industry. But while these problems are common in many […]

In 2020, it took four days for enough votes to be counted in Pennsylvania for media outlets to declare with confidence that Joe Biden had won the presidential election.  During those days, armed protesters showed up outside Philadelphia’s vote-counting center, and Rudy Giuliani, an ally of then-President Donald Trump, held a press conference outside Four […]