Armed poll watchers: New Jersey’s cautionary tale ahead of the 2020 presidential election

Democrats filed suit against Republicans in 1981 for allegedly sending armed patrols to polling stations during the New Jersey gubernatorial race. Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images Mark Krasovic, Rutgers University Newark In the history of voter suppression in the United States – including attempts to stop Black and Latino people […] Read more »

Americans Oppose Religious Exemptions From Coronavirus-Related Restrictions

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that U.S. adults overwhelmingly say houses of worship should be required to follow the same rules about social distancing and large gatherings as other organizations or businesses in their local area. About eight-in-ten Americans (79%) take this position, four times the share who […] Read more »

Affirmative Action and Public Opinion

… A great deal of detailed statistical analysis in recent months has highlighted the social and economic inequities facing Black Americans. And polling shows that Americans clearly favor the idea of remedying this situation and reducing inequalities of outcomes. But when it comes to policies that explicitly take race into […] Read more »

Trump voters haven’t been driven by racism. If anything, it has repelled them.

Unprecedented numbers of Americans — including a growing share of Republicans and independents — recognize racial injustice as pervasive, support police reform and back the protests against police brutality. Apparently oblivious to this emerging consensus, Trump is trying to run a Nixon-style “law-and-order” campaign for the 2020 election. And it […] Read more »