Happy New Year, loyal politicos and Postrider aficionados. It’s 2022, which means it’s a midterm year in America. Control of the House of Representatives, the Senate, a majority of governor’s mansions, and most state legislatures will all be up for grabs as Democrats will seek to hold on to their narrow federal majorities and prevent annihilation in state office elections as they face the momentum coming from Republicans.

It’s going to be a big year for elections in America, and after making a thorough assessment of The Postrider’s political coverage over the years, we’re excited to update you on some changes. 

For starters, our all-encompassing catch-all vertical we called State & Science is downsizing to prioritize and promote our bread and butter: Politics. Yours truly will serve as the editor of this new and improved vertical, setting the direction of coverage in coordination with the site’s Editor-in-Chief, with the same quality, consistency, and style you’ve come to expect. We’ll continue to produce a sprinkle of science, technology, business, and economics pieces auxiliary to this core coverage elsewhere on the site, but we know that politics is our mainstay, and want to elevate our elections and government content accordingly.

With Politics’ new elevation, we wanted to take this time to reaffirm our commitments to our readers in terms of what we do, how we do it, and what we want to do in the future with this fresh emphasis. Here’s what we’re working on:

Analysis and data-based stories. We have historically emphasized data-oriented stories when we put out political analysis pieces. Academic and occasionally dense, we nonetheless feel that this kind of analysis that walks our readers through a model we’ve constructed, or how we can forecast an election given a list of assumptions, is more effective than a fluff piece on election results. If we can use data, graphs, models, and charts to tell a story, we will generally opt to do so – as a tool to tell a larger story or a way to think about an issue. If we’re not providing more information on a very niche issue than you could get from Wikipedia, we’re not doing a good job.

More local. We’re not here pretending we can read the results of an election better than the Associated Press or CNN. Whether we can or not, there are larger places doing a much better job of it than we are – so we choose to focus on what specialties we have. Our contributors have years of experience following elections and demographic trends in a number of key states, and a more direct knowledge of the key players, dynamics, and what’s happening on the ground. We want to use local and state-based stories to tell a larger national one and give you a specificity you may not get from a national political reporting outfit.

Profiles and interviews. In 2021, we conducted a number of interviews to buffet our pieces, and we profiled a number of national candidates in the run up to the 2020 election. We’re hoping to do that and more in the future. And we’re counting on you! Is there a local or state election you feel isn’t getting the attention it deserves? Reach out to us at editor@thepostrider.com and let us know, we’d love to shed light where national outlets aren’t.

Senate and presidential race ratings. We’ve been doing these since 2018, and we’re not about to stop now. Every two years, we will continue to assess and rate each and every Senate race in the United States, presenting a national overview on who has the upper hand in controlling the chamber after the elections based on each state-specific analysis. In presidential elections, we issue a rating for each state and provide context on any rating change as we get closer to the election. Going forward we hope to improve these ratings in two ways. The first is by incorporating a wider array of contributors with specific expertise in these states to unpack the political developments at hand. The second is to provide these ratings further in advance – giving us more time to demonstrate how the race has shifted as we approach Election Day each cycle.

Major race calls. In 2021, we began making race calls in major elections on our social media channels, such as for the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections and the New York City mayoral election. All race calls are only made once our mathematical model indicates it is impossible for a given candidate to lose and on sign off from both the Politics Editor and The Postrider’s Editor-in-Chief.

The intersection of politics and pop culture. The other half of The Postrider’s coverage is a wealth of thoughtful and terrific pop culture coverage. Concert and album reviews, blunt film and television assessments, and the best in music each season. In 2021, we worked in tandem with this coverage to produce the Watching Mates podcast, exploring what films released under each postwar president revealed about their era in the White House. We also unpacked the pop culture world that surrounds President Richard Nixon in one of our most read pieces of the year, so we’re hoping to do more in this vein in 2022, working closely with the Movies & TV and Music editors to bring you content we’re all passionate about.

New political podcasts. As you may know, we launched Politics Express, our flagship politics podcast, in the last half of 2021, where you can catch us for quick takes, chats on election results, and more. But after Running Mates and Watching Mates, you may be wondering where we go next with our political miniseries. Well, in 2022 we anticipate launching a miniseries or two that will provide a little something to everyone, so stay tuned!

We’re excited to kick off 2022 with our new Politics vertical and all kinds of great new content coming your way. Stay tuned to the site for everything that’s yet to come and – as always – if you want us to pick up and publish a story you’re working on, reach out to us at contact@thepostrider.com. If not, reach out to us there or on social media to let us know what political content you’d like to see.