The Covid-19 pandemic has torn through the United States in the last 12 months, leaving more than half a million dead and the nation’s economy in tatters, but the virus didn’t arrive on a blank slate. Long before Covid, the Deaths of Despair epidemic was already taking a massive toll […] Read more »
Vaccine Hesitancy in Rural America
The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact has been felt in communities across the U.S., from the largest urban centers to the smallest rural communities. As previous research has demonstrated, rural communities face unique challenges in responding to the pandemic due to medical workforce shortages, fewer hospital beds per capita, limited access to […] Read more »
The Southern state where Black voters are gaining in numbers, but not power
… If Georgia is the epitome of the “New South,” Mississippi remains very much still the old South: a conservative stronghold where the GOP is composed almost exclusively of white voters, and the Democratic Party of Black voters. At first blush, Mississippi would seem to be fertile terrain for Democrats. […] Read more »
Density as Destiny?
There were lots of mixed messages that came out of this election. Pres. Donald Trump’s divisive and polarizing style cost him the White House, but his unpopularity didn’t doom down-ballot Republicans. Trump’s attacks on Joe Biden as a secret supporter of socialism fell flat, but that didn’t insulate House Democratic […] Read more »
The dramatic shifts in the 2020 election, visualized
… Preliminary county-level results show how the average margins in both urban and suburban counties were friendlier to Biden than they had been to Hillary Clinton four years ago, even as rural votes shifted more to the right. That suburban shift was critical: It is estimated that nearly half of […] Read more »
Counties with worst virus surges overwhelmingly voted Trump
U.S. voters went to the polls starkly divided on how they see President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, with a surprising twist: In places where the virus is most rampant now, Trump enjoyed enormous support. An Associated Press analysis reveals that in 376 counties with the highest number […] Read more »