Democratic lawmakers were scrambling this week to salvage support in the Senate for President Joe Biden’s social and environmental agenda, while also maintaining support for a companion infrastructure bill in the House. Correspondent John Dickerson discusses the drama of a political showdown that the majority-party Democrats are having with themselves. […] Read more »
How Much Does How Much We Hate Each Other Matter?
As Trump rose to the presidency, one explanation that swept political science was the power of polarization, specifically a phenomenon known as affective polarization, but a keen group of scholars now suggests that this approach is inadequate. It would be hard to describe the state of political competition in America […] Read more »
Voting Amid COVID: The Response of Voters to Voting during the Pandemic
This paper is a tour of mostly public opinion evidence about how COVID affected the experience of voters as they cast ballots in 2020. Topics covered include turnout, reasons for not voting, precautions observed in polling places, and the confidence voters felt about whether the layout of voting locations protected […] Read more »
Can Democrats Win Back the White Working Class?
Key Points• One of the defining features of American politics is the realignment of white, college-educated voters toward Democrats and that of white voters without a degree toward Republicans.• There are competing views on how or whether Democrats can perform better among white non-college voters.• Appealing to the economic interests […] Read more »
Abortion Has Never Been Just About Abortion
As recently as 1984, abortion was not a deeply partisan issue. “The difference in support for the pro-choice position was a mere six percentage points,” Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University, told me by email. “40 percent of Democratic identifiers were pro-life, while 39 percent were pro-choice. Among […] Read more »
How Strong Is America’s Multiracial Democracy?
The issue cutting across every aspect of American politics today is whether — and how — the nation can survive as a multiracial democracy. One key question is what the political impact has been of the decades-long quest to integrate America’s schools. A study published last year, “The Long-Run Effects […] Read more »