Latest Stories By Louis Jacobson

President-elect Joe Biden has steadily added to his list of prospective Cabinet nominees. What reception can they look forward to in the Senate? In all likelihood, a rough one. “It’s going to be hard, hard, hard,” said Paul C. Light, a professor at New York University’s Robert Wagner School of Public Service. “Republicans will go […]

We are now just days away from the quadrennial meeting of the Electoral College on Dec. 14, followed by Inauguration Day on Jan. 20. Forgotten your high school civics class or never learned it in the first place? Here’s a guide to what will happen between now and then. Will the electors vote on Dec. […]

You wouldn’t know it from reading President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed, but judges across the nation have repeatedly rejected lawsuits filed on his behalf in an unsuccessful effort to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race. At latest count, at least several dozen cases have been rejected in court or withdrawn. At one point, […]

A video tweet about President Donald Trump’s Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony for wrestler Dan Gable went viral on Dec. 7, with critics on social media suggesting that Trump made an abrupt departure. In the 16-second video, Trump is seen exiting the Oval Office as a reporter asks for “one more question about the inauguration.” […]

Republicans unhappy about President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election can at least take heart in the party’s gains in the House of Representatives. Going into election night, political handicappers had expected Democrats to add to their House majority. The Cook Political Report, for instance, predicted a 10- to 15-seat gain in its […]

From the point of view of moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News, the first 2020 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden seemed promising — at least for the first few moments. “My initial reaction was, ‘This is great — they’re going to engage with each other!’” Wallace said. “Not long after, you began […]

Can President Donald Trump wield the power of the pardon to protect himself? This is a question readers have asked us, so we asked legal scholars about a range of scenarios. Trump himself has asserted that doing so would be legal, although as he raised the possibility, he added that he wouldn’t need to, because […]

President Donald Trump continues to maintain that he won the 2020 presidential election, despite all evidence to the contrary. And he is continuing to block the transition to a new government headed by Joe Biden on Jan. 20. What he’s doing is certainly not normal for a departing president. But is it allowed? What is […]

Within a week, pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna announced that they had produced vaccines that were highly effective at preventing COVID-19, a possible turning point in the course of the pandemic. The Moderna vaccine, announced on Nov. 16, was found to be 95% effective at preventing the disease, according to an early analysis of clinical […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect vote tallies as of Nov. 25, 2020. How big was Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race? It wasn’t a landslide, but it was decisive, the numbers show. Biden’s Electoral College victory will be exactly the same as Trump’s in 2016: They both will have won […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: We updated and republished this article on Nov. 16 to include news about the Moderna vaccine. That article can be accessed here.  When drugmaker Pfizer announced that its new vaccine was highly effective at preventing COVID-19, it raised hopes that the coronavirus pandemic could be nearing its end.  In a Nov. 9 press […]

Major news networks and the Associated Press have declared Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election. What now? Here’s what we know. What does the media’s “call” of a winner actually mean? The media’s “call” of Biden as the winner doesn’t hold force of law. It’s simply the best estimation by the networks’ […]