In current times, reflection on Martin Luther King Jr.’s life often involves celebrating the nonviolent tactics he advocated as key to much of the civil rights movement’s success. At the time of his leadership in the 1960s, however, Americans held very different views of the effectiveness of mass demonstrations, boycotts […] Read more »
Winthrop Poll Southern Focus Survey
Half of residents in 11 Southern states either agree or strongly agree that America was founded as an explicitly Christian nation, according to the results in the Winthrop Poll Southern Focus Survey. This viewpoint, a crux of “Christian Nationalism,” is particularly prevalent among white evangelicals. CONT. Winthrop Poll Read more »
The lesson of 2018 for Democrats is not that they need a more moderate message for rural voters
… We’re now firmly in the analysis phase of the 2018 midterm elections, an election cycle in which Democrats slightly overperformed expectations in the House while seeing a net loss in the Senate, winning two-thirds of the contested Senate seats. One of the central questions for the party centers on […] Read more »
Across South, Democrats Risk Speaking Boldly and Alienating Rural White Voters
When Mike Espy, the Democrat challenging Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, faced his opponent at a debate ahead of this Tuesday’s runoff election, he had to make a choice: confront Ms. Hyde-Smith over her comments about attending “a public hanging,” which evoked the state’s racist history, or take a milder […] Read more »
In suburban South, Democrats break into Republican strongholds
Democrats may call Tuesday’s election a wave, but look closer and you’ll see the latest evidence of a longer-term shift in the suburban vote away from the Republican Party. This metropolitan realignment was so powerful this year that its impacts were felt in places that until now had largely been […] Read more »
The battle for the Sun Belt
Opportunity and necessity alike are pushing Democrats to focus more intently on gaining ground across the Sun Belt in next week’s election, from Florida and Georgia in the Southeast to Nevada and Arizona in the Southwest. The opportunity comes from changing demographics: with their young, diverse populations and in most […] Read more »