Americans split on who they’d blame if U.S. defaults, Post-ABC poll finds

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A Washington Post-ABC News poll finds Americans divided on who they would blame if the nation’s debt ceiling is not raised and the government goes into default, a potentially devastating outcome that could happen as soon as June 1.

The poll finds 39 percent of Americans say they would blame Republicans in Congress if the government goes into default, while 36 percent say they would blame President Biden and 16 percent volunteer that they would blame both equally. …

A 58 percent majority of Americans say the debt limit and federal spending should be handled as separate issues, down from 65 percent who said this in February. A much smaller 26 percent of Americans say Congress should only allow the government to pay its debts if Biden agrees to cut spending, the same share as February. CONTINUED

Emily Guskin, Washington Post

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Blame breaks evenly if government defaults on debt, despite preference for Biden’s position

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Americans divide closely on whom they’d blame if the federal government defaults on its debts, even as most align with the Biden administration’s position on how Congress should handle the issue.

If default occurs — as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Monday could happen by June 1 — 39% in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say they’d mainly blame the Republicans in Congress, while virtually as many, 36%, say they’d mainly blame Biden. Sixteen percent volunteer that they’d blame both equally.

That looks like a messaging snafu on President Joe Biden’s part, since many more people take his side than the Republican position on the issue. CONTINUED

Gary Langer, ABC News

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Most Americans support anti-trans policies favored by GOP, poll shows

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Clear majorities of Americans support restrictions affecting transgender children, a Washington Post-KFF poll finds, offering political jet fuel for Republicans in statehouses and Congress who are pushing measures restricting curriculum, sports participation and medical care. …

Still, as the country engages in a national debate over public policy around gender identity, interviews and other poll findings suggest that many Americans hold complicated and sometimes contradictory views on the subject.

While a majority of Americans oppose access to puberty blockers and hormone treatments for children and teenagers, for instance, clear majorities also support laws prohibiting discrimination against trans people, including in K-12 schools. CONTINUED

Laura Meckler & Scott Clement, Washington Post

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Red States Need Blue Cities

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In red and blue states, Democrats are consolidating their hold on the most economically productive places.

Metropolitan areas won by President Joe Biden in 2020 generated more of the total economic output than metros won by Donald Trump in 35 of the 50 states, according to new research by Brookings Metro provided exclusively to The Atlantic. Biden-won metros contributed the most to the GDP not only in all 25 states that he carried but also in 10 states won by Trump, including Texas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Utah, Ohio, and even Florida, Brookings found. …

Just as Democrats now perform best among the voters most accepting of the demographic and cultural currents remaking 21st-century America, they have established a decisive advantage in diverse, well-educated metropolitan areas. Those places have become the locus of the emerging information economy in industries such as computing, communications, and advanced biotechnology.

And just as Republicans have relied primarily on the voters who feel most alienated and threatened by cultural and demographic change, their party has grown stronger in preponderantly white, blue-collar, midsize and smaller metro areas, as well as rural communities. Those are all places that generally have shared little in the transition to the information economy and remain much more reliant on the powerhouse industries of the 20th century: agriculture, fossil-fuel extraction, and manufacturing. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic

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There’s a toxic brew of mistrust toward U.S. institutions. It’s got real consequences

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… Partisanship and polarization have been on the rise over the last 30 years. There are fewer competitive House districts, largely drawn by Republicans, which has meant more ideological purity in Congress and more hard-line, and, at times, ugly, in-your-face politics. It’s all mixed together to make for a toxic brew of mistrust and antipathy that shows in the potentially dangerous decline in the lack of trust in institutions. …

Americans don’t tend to like either political party very much. A December NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found that the parties were viewed nearly identically and in a negative light. Below the numbers, an intensity of dislike has grown. Over the last 30 years, members of both parties have been increasingly likely to express extremely negative views of the other political party. In 1994, only about one-fifth of Americans said they had a “very unfavorable” view of the other party. …

For those who wonder where this leads, the consequences are already being felt. There are growing fears about U.S. democracy domestically and abroad. World leaders were aghast at the Jan. 6 insurrection and were left questioning the U.S.’s ability to lead. CONTINUED

Domenico Montanaro, NPR News

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Leaning Into State Trends: The Midwest and Interior West

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Key Points
• Both the Midwest and Interior West have states that Joe Biden carried by less than his popular vote margin in 2020.
• In the Midwest, Michigan and Wisconsin will likely be prime battlegrounds states next year, although Michigan seems a harder lift for Republicans.
• In the Interior West, Arizona’s Republican lean has been eroding in elections since 2008 — this allowed Biden to carry it in 2020, but Democrats will also have to work to keep neighboring Nevada in their column. CONTINUED

J. Miles Coleman, Sabato’s Crystal Ball

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