Trump turns attention to suburbs despite demographic shifts

President Donald Trump has been paying a lot of attention to the suburbs over the last few weeks. He’s talked about protecting them from Democrats who, he says, want to “abolish” them and about protecting “suburban housewives” from the plans of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. A campaign focusing on […] Read more »

Why Trump’s Blunt Appeals to Suburban Voters May Not Work

President Trump’s latest campaign ads warn of left-wing mobs destroying American cities. His recent White House comments have depicted a rampage of violence and a “radical movement” to dissolve the police. His Twitter feed has sounded alarms over an Obama-era fair housing rule he has framed as a threat to […] Read more »

Trump’s message collides with diversifying suburbs

President Donald Trump’s racially charged warnings to suburban voters about crime and housing face a fundamental headwind: the suburbs themselves are much more racially diverse than even two decades ago. In contrast to the stereotype of homogenous communities of White families behind white picket fences, in many of the largest […] Read more »

Trump plays on fears in play for the suburbs

President Donald Trump this week sent a message to “The Suburban Housewives of America,” and in a single tweet summed up his strategy for shoring up support in communities critical to his reelection chances: Scare them. “Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream. I will preserve it, and […] Read more »

American Communities Experience Deaths of Despair at Uneven Rates

There’s a long list of measures that examine who is struggling in the United States — from poverty rates to income inequality — but in recent years a complicated set of personal struggles and challenges has come to be measured in one phrase, Deaths of Despair. This phrase describes deaths […] Read more »