The Atlantic Politics Daily: Our Most Memorable Stories of the Year

If there’s one word to that best defines the chaotic, crowded, nearly-year-long 2020 Democratic primary, it’s this: Electability. “Who do I like best?” might be how voters are supposed to choose a candidate, but “Who can beat Trump?” seems to be, well, trumping it this cycle. Russell Berman went to New Hampshire to talk to voters about why they’re obsessed with electability.

It was only a minor event in a year full of impeachment and a presidential primary, but one of the most stunning political stories of 2019 was Virginia becoming an all-blue state, completing its rapid transformation from a Republican stronghold not even two decades ago. Russell went to Richmond, the capital, to see how Democrats pulled it off, even as the state party was dogged by The Scandals (plural).

Emma Green, our reporter covering religion and the right, has been focused on a question a step ahead of this political moment: What will conservatism look like after Donald Trump leaves the White House? In July, she went to a conference where a set of conservatives sought to graft an intellectual framework to the messiness of Trumpism. Where did they seek to hold their conference to plot a new era in right-wing nationalism? … A Washington, D.C. Ritz-Carlton.

Virtually since Donald Trump descended down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015 and declared his presidential candidacy, a certain unsavory question has swirled around him: Is he losing it? My colleague Peter Nicholas, our White House reporter, wrote in October that Trump’s unhealthy habits amid the impeachment inquiry had his advisers worried: “I think what we’re viewing, if you think about the human side of it, is the man has no life. He just has no life,” a person close to the president told Peter.

Saahil Desai is an associate editor at The Atlantic, where he covers politics and policy.