You’ve likely been affected by climate change. Your long-term finances might be, too

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A great majority of Americans have been affected by extreme weather in recent years, and many suffer long-term financial problems as a result, according to a new nationwide survey conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

More than three-quarters of adults in the United States say they have experienced extreme weather in the last five years, including hurricanes, wildfires, floods and heat waves, the survey found. And most people who suffer major weather damage or financial problems do not receive money from the federal government. CONTINUED

Rebecca Hersher, NPR News

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Will the Democrats’ working-class strategy pay off?

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There has been plenty of talk over the past few years about the Democrats’ problems appealing to white, blue-collar voters. …

November’s midterm elections will present something of a test for Democratic strategists. What kind of coalition — and candidates — will get the party back on a winning track? Does the party need to reach out to non-college educated, blue-collar whites, or should it seek to build a coalition around centrist Democrats, particularly suburban voters with at least a college degree? Or, is the key mobilizing progressives who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 but now seem less enthusiastic about his presidency? …

The obvious test of whether Democrats can win back white, blue-collar voters will take place in November in Pennsylvania and Ohio, where the party already has two Senate nominees who hope to do just that. CONTINUED

Stuart Rothenberg, Roll Call

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The Major Supreme Court Decisions in 2022

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… According to a recent survey from researchers at Harvard, Stanford and the University of Texas, the public is closely divided on how the court should rule in several major cases. In many of them, though, respondents held starkly different views based on their partisan affiliations. Here is a look at the major cases this term. CONTINUED

Adam Liptak & Jason Kao, New York Times

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House Democrats have unified as never before. It may not save them.

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It may be cold comfort as a stormy midterm election approaches, but House Democrats have achieved a modern milestone in this legislative session that crystallizes a fundamental transformation in how Congress operates.

Working with a razor-thin majority, House Democrats have recorded the highest level of party unity in floor votes that either party has reached in at least 50 years, according to the authoritative statistics kept by Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call. …

The increased unity, many observers agree, is a testament not only to the skill of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in wrangling her caucus; it also reflects a succession of tectonic shifts in the electoral and legislative landscape that have transformed the historically unruly House into something much closer to a parliamentary institution that demands exacting levels of loyalty within each party — and produces far fewer possibilities of cooperation between them. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, CNN

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Americans Have Close but Wary Bond With Their Smartphone

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The percentage of U.S. adults saying they use their smartphone “too much” has increased markedly in recent years, rising from 39% when Gallup last asked this in 2015 to 58% today.

This sentiment was strongly age-contingent in 2015 and remains so now; however, all age groups have become more likely to express this concern. Also, this belief is pervasive not only among 20-somethings; smartphone users aged 30 to 49 (74%) are nearly as likely as those 18 to 29 (81%) to say they are on their phone too much. This contrasts with 47% of those 50 to 64 and 30% of those 65 and older. CONTINUED

Lydia Saad, Gallup

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The Supreme Court, Public Opinion and the Fate of Roe

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The Supreme Court, it has long been said, seldom gets very far out of step with public opinion.

The court is about to test that conventional wisdom. In the coming weeks, it seems poised to overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. Such a ruling would be at odds with the views of most Americans, according to recent public opinion polls.

A single decision, even if it’s a judicial earthquake that would eliminate a constitutional right that’s been in place for 50 years, would not by itself disprove a general trend.

But is there indeed evidence that public opinion influences the court? CONTINUED

Adam Liptak, New York Times

See also: Court Decisions and Trends in Support for Same-Sex Marriage by Patrick J. Egan & Nathaniel Persily

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack