The four Democratic candidates at the top of the polls heading into the Iowa caucuses have been paired by pundits into what they like to call lanes. It’s a highway analogy, as in “stay in your lane.” One, seen as more progressive and liberal, contains Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. […] Read more »
With Iowa and New Hampshire still up in the air, Democratic race has 2016 echoes
… Given the wildly conflicting polls (and the difficulty in polling caucus attendees), we still can’t be certain who’ll win Iowa, what the order of finish will be or what the margins between candidates will look like. So there is a lot up in the air. On the other hand, […] Read more »
The deep electoral roots of the Senate’s impeachment standoff
The virtually lockstep Republican defense of President Donald Trump so far during his impeachment trial marks a new milestone in the Senate’s long-term evolution into a more partisan and regimented institution that demands unwavering party loyalty and punishes the freewheeling independence that characterized the great legislators through the body’s history. […] Read more »
U.S. Media Polarization and the 2020 Election: A Nation Divided
As the U.S. enters a heated 2020 presidential election year, a new Pew Research Center report finds that Republicans and Democrats place their trust in two nearly inverse news media environments. Overall, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents view many heavily relied on sources across a range of platforms as untrustworthy. At […] Read more »
A Reckoning Over Iowa
… Many Democratic activists, especially but not exclusively those from minority communities, are perplexed and frustrated that the candidates of color who were considered most viable when the presidential contest began—Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, former Cabinet Secretary Julían Castro—have been forced from the race before the first votes […] Read more »
Why Democrats Still Have to Appeal to the Center, but Republicans Don’t
American politics has been dominated by the Democratic and Republican Parties since the Civil War. That gives us the illusion of stability — that today’s political divisions cut roughly the same lines as yesteryear. But in recent decades, the two parties have been changing, and fast. Those changes are ideological […] Read more »