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Hi, y’all. Welcome back to The Opposition. In the age of Trump, journalists and political analysts have been confronted with questions about what it really means to be objective. Is it possible to be a neutral observer? Or does this moment demand something else? Today’s edition is about how one of the most well respected and influential election analysts has grappled with these questions.
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–Lauren
He Was a Legendary Independent Pundit. Then Trump Arrived.
How and why Stuart Rothenberg left neutrality behind.
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FOR DECADES, REPORTERS ON DEADLINE had a reliable go-to when in need of expert analysis or a no-nonsense, authoritative quote about the latest political development.
It was Stuart Rothenberg, author of an influential newsletter—The Rothenberg Political Report, renamed in 2017 to Inside Elections—that analyzes and rates the competitiveness of House and Senate races.
Just scan the archives of the nation’s leading media outlets. There, you’ll find dozens of articles featuring Rothenberg’s quotable wisdom. He was the emblem of detached objectivity—an honest broker amid the increasingly piqued partisan turf wars.
Rothenberg’s competitor and longtime friend Charlie Cook, another famously neutral analyst and the founder of the Cook Political Report newsletter, explained it this way: “The highest compliment I can get from someone is when they say, ‘You know, I can’t tell whether you’re a Democrat or Republican.’. . . It’s something that, back when I started the newsletter in 1984, I tried very, very, very hard to do. And when Stu was doing the Rothenberg Political Report, he did as well.”
But things have changed for Rothenberg. He’s still opining on every topic under the political sun, from whether rising gas prices really are politically perilous for the incumbent president to the impact of the latest congressional scandal on the voters in a swing House district. But over the last decade, this platonic ideal of a down-the-middle pundit has become a vocal, unapologetic critic of Donald Trump and his administration.
In just the past few weeks, Rothenberg has called Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent a “jerk” and Trump an “idiot” and a “lunatic.”
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He agreed that Trump is the worst president in history and warned that “no matter how vile Trump is today, he’ll be worse tomorrow.” “Lock him up,” Rothenberg posted in response to Trump saying that there would be “Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!”
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Hours after Trump posted “I’m glad he’s dead” about the former FBI director, Rothenberg tweeted that the president “couldn’t carry Robert Mueller’s jockstrap.”