Are young voters going to sway the midterms? New data shows that’s not very likely.

The surge in activism among young Americans about gun laws after February’s Parkland, Fla., shootings, and that group’s general disapproval of President Trump, has raised the prospect that they will turn out at higher rates in this year’s midterm elections. … But a Washington Post analysis of voter registration data […] Read more »

Four in 10 Women Voters Age 18-44 Are ‘More Enthusiastic’ to Vote in Mid-Terms

With the 2018 primary election season concluding in August and the general congressional mid-term election season ramping up, Kaiser Family Foundation polling finds younger women (ages 18-44) voters are more enthusiastic about voting this year than in previous mid-term elections. In a new data note about KFF’s June Health Tracking […] Read more »

What’s Good for Democracy Is Also Good for Democrats

… While it is tempting to view elections as being decided in the moment, much of the groundwork is set in place decades earlier. Looking at survey data from the 1950s, political scientists observed that voters who came of age during the Great Depression identified as Democrats at much higher […] Read more »

Precinct Data Shows Rich, White Neighborhoods Flipping Democratic in 2016. Will It Last?

Republicans have been the party of the rich and Democrats the party of the poor for about as long as political scientists have collected data on American elections. That might not be quite so true anymore, at least among white voters. Hillary Clinton won the nation’s richest and most exclusive […] Read more »

Feel-Good or Do-Good Politics

A few recent developments have again highlighted a tension in left politics. One is the public shaming of Trump administration officials, calling them out in venues like restaurants, a tactic encouraged by at least one Democratic congresswoman. Another is a never-say-die mobilization against Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, a campaign that […] Read more »