The 2016 campaign and the Trump presidency has focused on issues tied closely to Americans’ racial, ethnic, religious, and gender identities — and generated calls for both parties to reject “identity politics.”
The challenge for both parties is that identity politics is increasingly baked into American politics. Even if Democratic and Republican candidates try to avoid it, voters are increasingly divided by identity-inflected issues that remain salient to their choices at the ballot box.
Data from the most recent VOTER Survey (Views of the Electorate Research Survey) provides a unique window into this growing partisan divide because it tracks the same respondents over time. CONT.
John Sides (Vanderbilt), Voter Study Group