Americans Expect Economic Improvement in a Deeply Divided Country

After the bruising 2016 campaign, Americans are broadly optimistic that Donald Trump’s election will invigorate the economy but fearful that it will further divide the nation along lines of class, race and party. While a solid three-fifths of American adults indicated that as a result of the election they expect […] Read more »

Who Can Tell the Future of the Democratic Party?

Here’s a question very few people expected to be asking this year: Does the Democratic Party have a future? The defeat of Hillary Clinton has revived with new intensity the conflict between proponents of identity politics — focusing electoral attention on African-Americans, Hispanics, women and the L.G.B.T. community — and […] Read more »

Behind Trump’s win in rural white America: Women joined men in backing him

In rural parts of America, it wasn’t just white men who flocked to the polls on Election Day to vote for Donald Trump. Rural white women were right there in the voting lines with them. The NBC News national exit poll documented how Trump and his populist message disproportionately appealed […] Read more »

Why identity politics couldn’t clinch a Clinton win

Many Democrats have believed that a coalition of minorities, millennials and single women would help create a new Democratic majority for years to come. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was counting on it. But the “rising American electorate,” as it’s called, failed to carry Clinton across the finish line. It didn’t […] Read more »