The draft Supreme Court opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion presents a major setback for reproductive freedom in America and offers a potential jolt to the upcoming midterm elections. But it also illuminates another, deeper phenomenon in American politics: the urgency and ambition of the Republican drive to lock […] Read more »
The voter turnout gap may be even bigger than we think
Demographic change continues to steadily reshape the American electorate, but the barriers to emerging groups gaining political power commensurate with their growing numbers may be even greater than previously understood, according to a new analysis of population and voting trends that’s stirring private debate in Democratic circles. The new study […] Read more »
How long can Democrats keep losing rural voters and still survive?
In the past few election cycles, color-coded result maps have developed a very familiar pattern at the county level. They mostly look like seas of Republican red punctuated by small islands of Democratic blue, even in races that end up being close. Those maps are a sign of a major […] Read more »
How Jackson will sharpen the Supreme Court’s core conflict
… Just 51 years old, Jackson will likely spend decades at the center of the gathering conflict between the deeply conservative inclinations of the GOP-appointed justices and the preferences of a diversifying America, particularly the massive millennial and Generation Z cohorts born since 1980, which constitute the most racially and […] Read more »
Book bans move to center stage in the red-state education wars
The escalating red-state efforts to ban more books mark a new stage in the struggle to control the educational experience of America’s kaleidoscopically diverse younger generations. … Though battles over access to controversial titles traditionally have been fought district by district, and even school by school, Republican-controlled states including Florida, […] Read more »
The Politics of the Nation’s Fastest-Growing Counties
Key Points• The U.S. Census Bureau recently reported changes in population from 2020 to 2021.• While the headline findings mainly dealt with population declines, a number of places (particularly in the Sun Belt) are still experiencing substantial growth.• A little more than 5 dozen counties with at least 100,000 residents […] Read more »