Narrow majorities in U.S. House have become more common but haven’t always led to gridlock
House Republicans held the fifth-smallest majority in U.S. history at the start of the current congress, tied with the 107th and 83rd Congresses.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
House Republicans held the fifth-smallest majority in U.S. history at the start of the current congress, tied with the 107th and 83rd Congresses.
The new House will have 80 members who’ve served in the military, or 18.4% of members. That’s up from 75, or 17.2%, in the 117th Congress.
Votes cast on Election Day have grown steadily less significant over the past several election cycles as a share of total votes cast.
Mail-in ballots accounted for just over half of this year’s primary votes cast in the 37 states (plus D.C.) for which data is available.
Since the end of World War II, there have been 225 successful coups (counting the events in Zimbabwe) in countries with populations greater than 500,000, according to the Center for Systemic Peace, which maintains extensive datasets on various forms of armed conflict and political violence. Most coups occurred during the height of the Cold War, from the 1960s through the 1980s.
If Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wins the Republican presidential nomination next year, he’ll be the first major-party nominee without a college degree since Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Supporters of gun-rights tend to feel more strongly about their position, and more willing to act on it politically, than backers of gun-control legislation.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech 50 years ago today on Washington D.C.’s National Mall and Memorial Parks has become one of the most famous, and quoted, pieces of oratory in U.S. history (though that wasn’t apparent to everyone at the time). But how well have the aspirations King so memorably expressed been realized? We ran […]
As Malaysians head to the polls this Sunday in what the BBC calls the nation’s “most hotly contested general election,” most report feeling satisfied with the direction of their country. The Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition, along with its predecessor the Alliance Party, has been Malaysia’s dominant political force since independence in 1957. But BN’s hold slipped […]
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