Historian Robert A. Strong examines how the 1874 and 1894 midterm elections triggered major political realignments, ending Reconstruction and launching Republican dominance under McKinley. He argues that while 2026 likely won’t match those dramatic shifts, even small seat changes could serve as a critical wake-up call for Trump, given today’s closely divided Congress.
UVA’s new ForgingUS project will make the documents, correspondence, and people behind America’s founding more accessible than ever. Supported by a $10 million NEH grant, the digital platform combines primary sources, maps, images, and data visualizations to illuminate the creation of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution
UVA Batten faculty Ben Goehring and Craig Volden earn national recognition for innovative state governance research. Goehring’s award-winning dissertation examines public sector employee turnover using state personnel data, while Volden’s Center for Effective Lawmaking introduces the first effectiveness scores for state legislators, advancing data-driven policy solutions and ethical leadership.
As Democrats eye midterm gains in 2026, a growing bloc of Democratic Socialists of America-affiliated candidates could complicate governing. Drawing parallels to the Freedom Caucus’s disruption of Republican leadership, this analysis examines how DSA members might wield influence over House leadership elections and legislation, despite institutional hurdles facing inexperienced, ideologically driven newcomers.
A subcommittee of the Virginia General Assembly invited researchers to examine what would happen if the Commonwealth aligned its voting calendar with federal elections.
A new study published in Nature, co-authored by UVA doctoral student Thomas Storrs, provides the first national analysis of racial disparities in early federal mortgage lending. Examining over 100,000 records across 38 states, researchers found that from 1935 to 1947, Black Americans received just 2% of FHA loans and 5% of VA home loans despite comprising roughly 10% of the U.S. population and veteran population.
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The Weldon Cooper Center has released a new vintage of population projections for the United States as a whole, all 50 states, and the District of Columbia. The product is benchmarked on the 2020 Decennial Census and the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2025 Population Estimates. The projections extend through 2050 and provide a consistent framework for examining future population outlook across states and regions.