This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on Feb. 25, 2016 This has been a year in which all of the conventional rules of politics have been suspended, at least temporarily. Much of what many of us have learned about campaigns and voter behavior suddenly didn’t apply. On the Democratic side, we have begun to see a reversion to the norm. But in the Republican Party, what we are seeing continues to be both unprecedented and counterintuitive. The rise of Bernie Sanders was certainly a surprise. For a little more than 25 years, he had been a marginal at best figure on Capitol Hill, rarely relevant to the big issues and debates taking place in the Senate. That he was able to give Hillary Clinton fits, even for a short time, was remarkable. He will win or at least perform respectably in caucus states, where passion reigns supreme, and in New England, the most liberal region in the country. But the states with primaries, which have the lion’s share of the delegates, are outside of New England, and Sanders’s prospects
Subscribe Today
Our subscribers have first access to individual race pages for each House, Senate and Governors race, which will include race ratings (each race is rated on a seven-point scale) and a narrative analysis pertaining to that race.