Politeia

On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the 2010 district court ruling that California’s Proposition 8  forbidding same-sex marriages was unconstitutional. It was the first time a federal appeals court had overturned a state law against same-sex marriage. In the majority opinion ... Read More

Rick Santorum beat Mitt Romney in all three Republican contests on Tuesday. Santorum won by sizable margins in both Missouri and Minnesota—where Romney came in third behind Ron Paul—although Missouri was a non-binding “beauty contest” with no delegates at stake. Santorum also won Colorado, a key ... Read More

In Florida four years ago about 1.95 million people voted in the Republican primary. This year 1.66 million people voted in the same primary. That’s 300,000 fewer people, a 14% drop in a state that has only been growing. Of course, part of the reason for the drop could be that four years ago the ... Read More

Mitt Romney looks more and more like the Republican nominee after soundly defeating the Republican field in the Florida Primary. Romney managed to get more votes than Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum combined, and has moved back into the lead in national polling. The futures traders at Intrade now ... Read More

The chance that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee fell since last week after Newt Gingrich beat him by 12 points in Saturday’s South Carolina primary. After the primary, Romney fell behind Gingrich in the polls both nationally and in Florida, where the next primary is being held. While the ... Read More

It has been clear for some time that the presidential election would be about economics. The killing of Osama bin Laden, the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and the fall of Muammar Qaddafi were all obviously significant events, but with unemployment still at 8.5% national security issues will ... Read More

Mitt Romney has experience that Barack Obama doesn’t. For all his obvious gifts, Obama has no real experience running private companies, while Romney is one of the most accomplished business people of his generation. As a management consultant at Bain, Romney was at the forefront of a revolution in ... Read More

As we approach Saturday's Republican primary in South Carolina, Mitt Romney’s nomination is looking more and more likely. Political futures market Intrade now gives Romney an almost 90% chance of winning the Republican nomination—up 4 points from a week ago—as conservative opposition to him remains ... Read More

Mitt Romney’s convincing victory in New Hampshire—exit polls showed him winning in a wide variety of key groups—made him the first non-incumbent Republican in years to win both Iowa and New Hampshire. Conservative South Carolina seems like the last chance for a credible alternative to Romney to ... Read More

As a former pro-life governor of liberal Massachusetts, whose signature achievement was the health care plan that served as a model for Obamacare, Mitt Romney has to work hard to convince conservative Republicans that he is really one of them. His support among Republicans has hovered around just 25 ... Read More

Welcome to the first of my weekly roundups of the upcoming U.S. elections. President Obama’s approval rating remains below 50% and the economy continues to be weak, but political futures markets still give him better than even odds of winning reelection. At the same time, they give Republicans a ... Read More

Don’t read too much in to Mitt Romney’s narrow victory in the Iowa caucus. There’s no question that the relatively small state of Iowa has an outsize influence both on the presidential nominating process and—as a result—on the national political agenda. But that doesn’t mean that the roughly 120,000 ... Read More

The hottest investment right now may be U.S. treasury bonds. Daniel Kruger reports this week that here was record demand for treasuries in 2010. At a recent auction for four-week bonds the government received a record $9.00 in bids for every dollar of bonds sold, even though the bonds pay no ... Read More

President Obama ought to be in a lot of trouble. With the economy still as bad as it is after three years in office, his prospects for reelection should be bleak. But it still remains to be seen who will take the blame for our economic problems. And the fact is that as much as Americans disapprove ... Read More

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that Mitt Romney remains the likely Republican nominee in spite Newt Gingrich’s recent surge in the polls. The smart money over at the political futures market Intrade still likes Romney, giving him a 50% chance of winning the nomination, while give Gingrich just a 30 ... Read More