The House of Representatives this week is poised to pass its most significant gun control legislation since President Bill Clinton’s first term — and in the process highlight a fundamental transformation in the Democratic Party’s center of gravity. …
The willingness, even eagerness, of most House Democrats to embrace new gun control measures highlights how the party’s evolution into a metropolitan-based coalition is shifting its incentives — and reconfiguring its central fault line. For years, social and cultural issues — ranging from abortion, gay rights and guns to questions of racial equity and immigration — created the most difficult divisions for a Democratic House caucus trying to protect a large number of rural and Southern seats.
But those social issues are likely to prove much less divisive for today’s metro-centered party. CONT.
Ronald Brownstein, CNN
Recent polls: Guns