Top 98 Quotes & Sayings by Kristen Soltis Anderson

Trump won 44.4 percent of votes in Virginia in 2016. At press time, Ed Gillespie had won 45 percent of the vote in 2017.

Even when we're not talking about Trump, we're talking about Trump.

Lots of folks still do watch TV, but I think understanding the future of politics means understanding where folks' attention is being paid and delivering your message and your ideas in that space.

The American system is set up to have two parties competing for votes. But Americans have not had the same two parties to choose from since the beginning.

One thing that is fairly undeniable about Trump - love him or loathe him - is his understanding of how to manipulate the media and to perpetuate a symbiotic relationship with the press.

Feeling unsafe in your own home? Look no further than those terrorists and criminals and illegal immigrants who have been given free reign and on whom Trump says we need to 'get tough.'

Election losses are always an inkblot test for partisans. If a candidate's defeat has no clear and obvious cause, if the data points are all over the map, it is easy for those on the sidelines to claim, 'Candidate X would have won if only he or she had been more like... me.'

I think 'Candy Crush' may be fading in popularity, but there's always something new that's popping up.

The data - on issues and on Trump himself - keep pointing back to 'one-in-four' as the true size of Trump's base. It is around one in four who like the tweeting, like the insults, the things other people say are mean or unproductive behavior.

Either people are changing their minds about Trump, or increasing numbers of his supporters are deciding it is too embarrassing to admit they support him. Neither is a particularly good position to be in.

With an economy that is going strong and a belief that tomorrow will be better than today, it may be easier to just shrug it off if, say, an internet service you use like WhatsApp gets turned off by the government as the Communist Party's national congress approaches.

In 2010, voters certainly hit the brakes on the Obama presidency. Fast forward to the 2016 election, where voters yanked up on the emergency brake and did a donut in the parking lot. Now, the car has stopped. We sit here dizzy for a moment, looking to get on the road again.

Millennials are not deeply familiar with school choice, and have some reservations, especially about the types of institutions that a student might choose to attend with taxpayer dollars.

There's no counting the number of times the media have asked, 'Will this be the thing that drives Donald Trump's supporters away from him? Is this finally the time?'

Washington in the summer is a never-ending stream of tour groups and packs of students, here to swarm the monuments, stroll the National Mall, and learn about our nation's history and government.

For federal races, being able to carefully navigate the Trump Era is a significant challenge.

Republicans can't always agree on where to cut spending. They certainly can't agree on what to do about entitlements. There isn't a unified foreign policy vision, and there's no consensus on immigration reform.

The reality is that the Republican Party may have unified government but is not unified enough on many major signature policy areas.

Candidates, of course, often claim that they want to run 'a purely positive campaign,' but this rarely materializes.

My dad is an electrical engineer. So he was always very focused on, you know, teaching his daughters about, you know, science, math, technology. None of us actually became engineers for our careers, but I always had that exposure when I was young, and I just loved playing computer games.

After Mitt Romney's defeat, the RNC released its official assessment of what happened - a failure to reach younger voters, nonwhite voters, women - but was met with a counter-narrative that, in fact, it was Romney's failure to be conservative enough that led to a depressed Republican base.

In the relatively short time frame of December 2015 to March 2017, nearly half of all young Republicans left their party at some point, with roughly a quarter bidding the GOP adieu for good.

If a woman rising in power is too tough or aggressive, she's attacked for it. If she's attractive, she's accused of having used that to her advantage. And even if a woman is beyond qualified for a role, there will always be those who raise doubts about if she's really qualified.

Winning feels great, and everybody loves a winner. But the very best figure out what's coming next and don't assume they've got the winning formula forever.

A compelling story requires conflict, friction, an obstacle to be overcome.

It's not hard to assume that voters do not have deeply considered views on each and every policy issue before them but instead, perhaps, have one or two strongly held views and then allow their favored political leaders to fill in the gaps on the rest of the issues.

Without a clear diagnosis of why the candidate or party failed, there can be no clear consensus about how to move forward.

I went to Washington, D.C, for the first time my senior year as part of Girls Nation, put on by the American Legion Auxiliary, which sends high school students to D.C. to form a pretend federal government. There was an energy about the city that made me feel like I just had to come back there.

I dreamed of being like Sam Seaborn on 'The West Wing'.

Tax reform exists, sort of, as an outline - miles away from being actual passed legislation.

President Trump is right about at least one thing: No matter what he does, America cannot stop talking about him.

It is fair to debate how much either bill - Obamacare in 2010, tax reform in 2018 - had or will have an impact on the midterms.

If there is one issue where one could justifiably assume that Republicans are all in agreement, it is on lowering taxes.

After the 2012 election, 'independent' becomes the popular choice among new young voters and stays that way with the exception of a brief spike around the 2016 Democratic primary fight.

Obamacare itself did not become popular until the middle of 2017, when the risk of repeal was the greatest; for the bulk of 2010 after passage, it was unpopular by double-digit margins.

The things that frustrate one piece of Trump's coalition often endear him to or embolden another wing of the coalition.

In the United States, it is unmistakable that young people have broken away from the political right and have gravitated to more leftist-populist figures like Bernie Sanders.

Those who are able to afford to live in a neighborhood with 'good schools' will do so, knowing that a good education is the key to good opportunity for their children.

Overall, America's math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have risen since the 1990s though remain disappointing when compared to the rest of the globe.

Millennials easily connect the dots between good education and good opportunities, and they also understand that it isn't just hard work that determines how well a child will be educated - it also depends on where they live and the resources their parents commit to their education.

Obama's numbers fell by a slightly larger amount over his first few months because he enjoyed much more support right at the start from Republicans, support that eroded quickly.

The idea that someone, somewhere will campaign in a positive, uplifting way on an agenda that can inspire Americans? I'm sadly done holding my breath.

'Staunch conservatives' and 'free marketeers' are fairly typical Republicans, while the 'American preservationists' are far less reliably a part of a GOP coalition.

Thoughtful education programs and access to effective forms of contraception are key to preventing unplanned pregnancy.

For Trump, the story is everything. There is no real plan to defeat the villains that Trump tees up, of course.

I had a history teacher who taught us a lot about the Cold War. You had these examples of countries where the government had tried to manage the economy really intensely, and it ended up being bad for the citizens there. I found myself beginning to lean more right on economic issues.

I have written time and again about the damage the Republican Party has done to itself with the millennial generation.

Congress has been productive when focusing on bites of policy that don't inflame the divisions within the party and quietly do the work of governing.

Boosting STEM education opportunities for young women globally is one critical way that the U.S. can promote women's equality, as well as economic development, around the world.

I grew up in Orlando, Florida, and I joined the debate team right around the time of the 2000 election.

There's no question that a Democratic Congress plus a Trump presidency would equal gridlock. Nothing moves, nothing changes, nothing gets accomplished, nothing gets reformed. Voters know this.

Often times, when we talk about improving our public schools, it is easy to come back to the question of money. Are schools basically fine, just underfunded? Millennials say no - more funding isn't the cure-all for what ails our schools.

When talented, qualified women take on greater responsibility, the simple fact of being talented and qualified is hardly enough to shield them from the gender-specific animosity that will come their way.

Federalists, Whigs, Democratic-Republicans; parties are born, parties die, and parties realign themselves to adapt to shifting demographics and attitudes.

Electing Democrats means nothing happens. Elect Republicans, and at least there's a chance.

The robots are coming, whether we like it or not, and will change our economy in dramatic ways.

It was weird that I was a young person who was Republican. And I wanted to get at the heart of why it was that so many people of my generation thought that being Republican just wasn't for them. They thought that conservative ideas just weren't for them.

There are certainly more Republicans who like President Trump than like 'Republicans in Congress,' and certainly many Republicans who already feel like their own Congress is a brake pedal of its own.

In 2014, topics like Black Lives Matter, the Middle East, and Ebola were prominent in the national discussion, with mentions of then-President Barack Obama making up a relatively small slice of the discussion on news twitter.

Not long ago, women in Afghanistan were required by Taliban leadership to be covered nearly head-to-toe and were barely allowed to leave the home; that young Afghan women today are not only accessing an education but are able to meet young people from around the world and cheer on a robot of their own making is something beautiful.