Democrats have seen this movie before. An election takes place, they examine the results and suddenly lament their poor showing with rural voters. It has happened time and again and yet the party has neither a solution to the problem nor, it seems, a commitment to solving it. … The […] Read more »
What we learned about the urban/rural political divide in Washington
For years, the “Cascade Curtain” has been a favored way to describe Washington state politics — Republican on the dry side of the mountains, Democratic on the wet side. Within that framework the “suburban crescent” — the area surrounding Seattle — was an exception, the place in western Washington where […] Read more »
More Americans say they’d prefer the country over city or suburbs
Fewer than one in five Americans live in a rural area these days, but far more would like to. When asked what type of community they would prefer to live in if they could live any place they wished, nearly half of Americans pick the country — far ahead of […] Read more »
‘Breaking point’: Why the red state/blue city conflict is peaking over masks
Political and population trends are colliding as the steadily escalating tension between red states and their blue cities across the Sun Belt is reaching a breaking point over the volatile issue of school masking. For more than a decade, GOP governors and Republican-controlled legislatures in states from Florida and Georgia […] Read more »
As New Census Numbers Show, the Biggest Divide Isn’t North v. South Anymore—It’s Metro v. Rural
On Thursday, the Census Bureau released the 2020 census data for cities, counties, and other geographic subdivisions. Just as with the state-level numbers announced in April, there were some surprises. Many large metropolitan areas grew faster over the past decade than the Bureau had previously projected, with eight of the […] Read more »
Most Americans don’t want voting to be harder; Democrats and GOP see political fortunes at stake
As a host of states try to change their voting rules, most Americans say they’d prefer the voting process to be left alone — or made easier. Relatively few want it to be harder after an election that saw record turnout. With the fight over voting attracting national attention, partisans […] Read more »