… Voters are generally risk averse, preferring candidates they know over those who may be more exciting but unfamiliar. This holds particularly true for black voters: A study published last year in Public Opinion Quarterly noted that black voters are especially inclined to choose established candidates and efficiently assess contenders […] Read more »
The American GI in WWII, uncensored
Pfc Elias Friedensohn in June 1945 at the Special Services Distributing Point, Seine Section, Paris, France. National Archives Edward Gitre, Virginia Tech I can still recall the exhilaration I felt in the reading room of the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. It was mid-April 2009. I was scrolling through […] Read more »
Less Than Half in U.S. Would Vote for a Socialist for President
Less than half of Americans (47%) say they would vote for a qualified presidential candidate who is a socialist — the same percentage Gallup found in 2015. A socialist candidate is the only one among a dozen hypothetical candidates about whom a minority of Americans say they are willing to […] Read more »
The Rise of White Identity Politics
Conservatives and moderates are often dismissive of “identity politics,” by which they mean liberal efforts to motivate voter turnout by raising issues of particular concern to women, people of color, and other marginalized groups in American politics. But it is important to remember that the original identity politics play was […] Read more »
Studying how law and order issues are framed has helped to uncover 2016’s shy Trump voters
Racial tensions surged back onto the American political agenda during the 2016 election. Following numerous mass protests and sporadic riots sparked by the deaths of people of color at the hands of police officers, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump took opposite positions on the “law and order” issue. Clinton expressed […] Read more »
In Pennsylvania, Joe Biden Finds Support Where He Most Needs It
The case for Joseph R. Biden Jr. has always come down to Pennsylvania. … Mr. Biden’s entry was met, particularly on social media, by a chorus of doubts at times bordering on derision from critics and progressive activists who questioned his age, his status as a white man and his […] Read more »