Democrats Don’t Have a Future in the Rust Belt

For Democrats, the Sun Belt imperative is growing more urgent. While most in the party are preoccupied with winning back the three Rust Belt states that tipped the 2016 election to Donald Trump, both people and political power are continuing to migrate inexorably from that region to the younger and […] Read more »

Gerrymandering is alive and well. The coming battle will be bigger than ever.

The gerrymandering wars are heading South. A number of Southern states, including Texas, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, are prime targets for partisan gerrymandering as the congressional redistricting process gets underway after next year’s statehouse elections, experts said. … America’s decennial congressional redistricting process — when roughly even-sized House districts […] Read more »

Three reasons Biden might keep deep African-American support

For Joe Biden, the Southern states that come after the earliest Democratic nominating contests are seen as something of a firewall. Even if the former vice president struggles early, primaries in states such as South Carolina, which follows close on the heels of New Hampshire, have sizable African-American populations and […] Read more »

Belief in Bootstraps Is Strongest Where Pulling Up Is Toughest

A widening income gap and sagging social mobility have left dents in the American dream. But the belief that anyone with enough gumption and grit can clamber to the top remains central to the nation’s self-image. And that could complicate Democratic efforts to frame the 2020 presidential election as a […] Read more »