Democratic Party voters are split. Its most progressive wing, which is supportive of contentious policies on immigration, health care and other issues, is, in the context of the party’s electorate, disproportionately white. So is the party’s middle group of “somewhat liberal” voters. Its more moderate wing, which is pressing bread-and-butter […] Read more »
Trump Relies on Populist Language, but He Mostly Sides With Corporate Interests
History will record last week as a moment when President Trump turned to raw racial appeals to attack a group of nonwhite lawmakers, but his attacks also underscored a remarkable fact of his first term: His rhetorical appeals to white working-class voters have not been matched by legislative accomplishments aimed […] Read more »
Are Trump Switchers More Similar to Regular Trump Voters or Clinton Voters?
Ahead of the 2020 election, there’s been debate over whether the Democratic Party should try to win over voters who switched to Donald Trump in 2016 — after not having voted in Republican in 2012 . Where these Trump switchers stand politically might matter in this calculus, as certain analyses […] Read more »
Wealth Tax and Free College Get Poll Support. Democrats Worry It Won’t Last.
There is a puzzle for the Democratic challengers hoping to unseat President Trump, and it is evident in public reaction to some of their breakout policy ideas. Polls show several of those ideas are quite popular with the electorate, including taxing the assets of very wealthy Americans and offering free […] Read more »
Trump didn’t introduce racism to conservative politics — but he’s cultivated and amplified it
There’s nothing new in American politics about the racial hostility President Trump has demonstrated this week. … In recent years, though, it’s been rare to see an elected official as prominent as the president of the United States make as overt an appeal to racial politics as Trump’s in recent […] Read more »
Does public support for democracy defend a country from autocrats? Not necessarily.
… Since the time of Plato, political thinkers have argued that a pro-democratic public is necessary for a stable and vital democracy. But others have countered that these opinions are just cheap talk that have little impact on political outcomes. In new research, forthcoming in the American Journal of Political […] Read more »