About Michael Barone

Michael Barone

Michael Barone

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

From 1974 to 1981, Barone was vice president of the polling firm of Peter D. Hart Research Associates. From 1981 to 1988, he was a member of the editorial page staff of The Washington Post. From 1989 to 1996 and again from 1998 to 2009, Barone was a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report. He was senior staff editor at Reader's Digest from 1996 to 1998.

Barone is the principal co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, published by National Journal every two years. The first edition appeared in 1971. He is also the author of Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan (Free Press, 1990), The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again (Regnery, 2001) and Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Competition for the Nation's Future (Crown Forum, 2004).

Over the years, Barone has written for many publications, including The Economist, The New York Times, The Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, National Review, The American Spectator, American Enterprise, The Times Literary Supplement and The Daily Telegraph of London. He has served as a political contributor to the Fox News Channel since 1998 and has appeared on many other television programs.

Barone graduated from Harvard College (1966) and Yale Law School (1969), and was an editor of the Harvard Crimson and the Yale Law Journal. He served as law clerk to Judge Wade H. McCree Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 1969 to 1971.

Barone lives in Washington, D.C. He has traveled to all 50 states and all 435 congressional districts. He has also traveled abroad extensively and has reported on elections in Russia, Mexico, Italy and Britain.

View his work here.

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The Long Rise of the New Democratic Party Aug 07, 2026

Can I claim to have predicted, way back in 1988, the result of Michigan's fiercely contested Democratic primary for U.S. senator this week? The developments that have made Abdul El-Sayed — who lost the 2018 gubernatorial primary to Gov. Gretche... Read More

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America's Peak Socialism -- Abandoned a Century Ago Jul 31, 2026

The emergence of the Democratic Socialists of America and their political victories, from New York City across the fruited plains of Michigan and Wisconsin, all the way to Colorado, strikes many as a new thing in U.S. politics. Previous movements hav... Read More

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Ukrainian War Remakes War Jul 24, 2026

Wars remake war. New weaponry, new tactics, new strategy time and again produce results no one predicted or thought possible. Revolutionary France's levee en masse and Napoleon's bold attacks prevailed over staid 18th-century siege warfare and subdue... Read More

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Lindsey Graham, Politician and Churchillian Jul 17, 2026

Still boyish, energetic, enthusiastic, Lindsey Graham died suddenly last weekend at the age of 71. Once upon a time, death at such an age was not unexpected. The two Presidents Roosevelt died aged 60 and 63, and in the summer of 1949, two Supreme Cou... Read More