Persistent economic anxiety at home and the advance of Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria are complicating life for Barack Obama, helping push his job approval rating back under water, to its lowest of the year. Forty-five percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll approve of Obama’s […] Read more »
The Average Joe’s Proviso
Democrats cannot win big or consistently enough, deep enough down the ticket or broadly enough in the states, unless they run much stronger with white working-class and downscale voters. That includes running better with white working-class swing voters, of course. But it also includes winning more decisively with white unmarried […] Read more »
Trade Is a Striking Example of the Political Power of the Affluent
The Pacific Rim trade deal making its way through Congress is the latest step in a decades-long trend toward liberalizing trade — a somewhat mysterious development given that many Americans are skeptical of freer trade. But Americans with higher incomes are not so skeptical. They — along with businesses and […] Read more »
How Income Inequality Factors Into the 2016 Campaign
… Income inequality is back in the headlines, but it’s more than Elizabeth Warren’s rhetoric or Bernie Sanders‘s presidential announcement; Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, and others have joined the conversation. These combined voices suggest the ground may be shifting on the issue of income inequality and in popular resentment toward […] Read more »
Populism could divide the Grand Old Party
… Republicans and conservatives have a brand problem. Their presidential campaign will only aggravate it as candidates are forced to double-down on an ideology that is in danger of decline. Moreover, the next year is likely to intensify deep stresses inside their coalition. Mike Huckabee gleefully highlighted these frictions when […] Read more »
Americans Continue to Say U.S. Wealth Distribution Is Unfair
Despite the growing focus on inequality in recent years, the 63% of Americans who say that money and wealth should be more evenly distributed among a larger percentage of the people is almost the same as the 60% who said this in 1984. CONT. Frank Newport, Gallup Read more »