… Americans are more and more geographically segregated along ideological lines. When that segregation is refracted through the lens of party primaries and winner-take-all elections, the result is a Congress that is bitterly divided. Gerrymandering may work to make that division worse, but it is not the root cause. Though […] Read more »
Tea Party Yankees
… In the jargon of mainstream political science, citizens have preferences, and the political system aggregates those preferences according to its particular rules and structures. Undoubtedly, Americans’ political attitudes have shifted to the right in many ways over the past few decades. Still, if the shutdown and debt ceiling standoff represent […] Read more »
Americans support fine-tuning election policy
… The roots of the nation’s polarized and sometimes paralyzed politics, decades in the making, are too complex and far-reaching to be easily reversed or resolved. Even so, some political scientists and politicians argue that making simple changes — expanding who can vote in primary elections, for instance, or rethinking […] Read more »
Republicans and Democrats are treating the 2012 election like a mandate. They’re both wrong.
… Elections don’t convey policy mandates because most voters don’t vote on policy. Instead, they vote based on longstanding loyalties to one party or the other. As political scientist Gabriel Lenz shows, rather than using policy to choose a candidate, voters more often choose the candidate first, and then mold […] Read more »
What’s up with Independents?
Election Day 2014 is about a year away, so naturally political junkies across the political spectrum want to know … what’s up with Independents? First, a brief recap of the “Independent vote” over the last decade. In the last five Congressional elections, according to national exit polls, majorities of Independents […] Read more »
The Strip: The Disenfranchising Team
See ya, early voting! Good luck getting to the polls on a workday, poor people! [cont.] Brian McFadden, The Strip, New York Times Read more »