Articles by Chris Estep

It goes without saying that the Republican Party’s nomination of Donald Trump, a high-profile businessman with no experience holding elected office, for the presidency has been the most discussed development in American politics this year. News coverage of Mr. Trump’s primary victory eclipsed even that of the first major-party presidential nomination of a woman, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. However, even as ocean waves can sometimes be accompanied by dangerous rip currents, the en...

In the aftermath of the departures of both U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio from the Republican presidential primary contest, the public’s attention is now beginning to shift toward a general election race between real estate mogul Donald Trump and the likely Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This “pivot” in the coverage of the 2016 presidential election is likely to involve a much greater interest in the political inclinations of independent...

In June, Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, made waves in the world of political punditry when he suggested in a letter to the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee that the party should sanction more primary debates, and that some of those debates should even include Republican candidates for the presidency. Paul Singer of USA Today wrote at the time that “Sanders said inter-party debates would show a clear co...

Ever since the days of the Roman republic, when Quintus Tullius Cicero wrote a brief work titled “Little Handbook on Electioneering” for his brother Marcus, then a candidate for consul in Rome, political consultants have had a heavy presence in campaigns for public office. In American history, these operatives have served in various political roles, from personal advisers of candidates to prominent leaders of partisan structures. Almost always, individual political consultants in the United Sta...

When it comes to politics, 2014 may be remembered as the year of the improbable. In Kansas, a GOP stronghold, both the Republican governor and a very conservative senator are fighting for their political lives against a moderate Democrat and an independent, respectively. Meanwhile, in New Mexico, a state President Obama won by more than 10 percentage points just two years ago, the incumbent Republican governor, Susana Martinez, is poised to handily defeat her Democratic opponent. As surprising ...

Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback is in the fight for his political life in what was once one of America's deepest red states. In 2004, Brownback won election to the U.S. Senate with 69.2 percent of the vote; in 2010, he won the state's governorship with 63.3 percent of the vote. Now, the incumbent faces a serious challenge from his Democratic opponent, Kansas House Minority Leader Paul Davis. In a recent CNN/ORC poll, Brownback and Davis are tied among likely Kansas voters, with 49 percent ...

On June 26, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released a 185-page report titled, "Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology." What makes this report so interesting is that it does not simply sort respondents into the inflexible "Republican," "Democrat," or "independent" labels. Instead, it divides voters into eight nuanced political typologies. These smaller, more precise groupings ranged from the furthest right, the "Steadfast Conservatives," to the furthest left, the "Sol...

In 1946, after winning control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate for the first time in 14 years, Republican legislators set about establishing term limits for the office of President of the United States. The Twenty-Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed and later ratified largely because of the unprecedented four-term presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.The amendment has survived for over 60 years and prevents two-term presidents from running fo...

Recently, American foreign policy priorities have been highly focused on the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions. Between winding down the U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and navigating the tumult caused by the Arab Spring, President Obama has spent much of his diplomatic capital in the Middle East. In the Asia-Pacific region, the president has further increased American diplomatic involvement. For the past few years, the U.S. has engaged China on trade and security issues, grap...