The Economist on the DSA

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. The 2026 environment is very favorable for the Democrats, but a hard leftward shift could spoil their chances.

The Economist on the DSA:

Their number has swelled more than twentyfold in the past decade, but still totals only around 120,000. The prime target is the downwardly mobile millennial. Michael Lange, a political analyst and DSA member, says the question to identify prospective joiners is: “Are you under 50 and do you rent?” At its latest survey, in 2021, four-fifths of DSA members over the age of 25 had a college degree—twice the share of American adults. A third had a postgraduate degree and a third were gay or queer. Ashik Siddique, a co-chair of the DSA, says it is the largest queer membership organisation in the country. Members found to be working as cops can be expelled.

Therein lies the paradox: a group that claims to represent the working class looks and speaks nothing like it. On all manner of social issues, from trans rights to policing to immigration to abortion, college graduates are far to the left of blue-collar workers. Take protections for trans people, a plank of the DSA platform. Only half of working-class people tell pollsters that it should be illegal to fire or evict a trans person, compared with 82% of left-leaning college grads.

On economics, too, working-class and older voters tend to be more sceptical of the sweeping changes promised by the young new left, says Adam Carlson, a pollster. Mr Siddique, sounding a bit like Lenin, says the DSA’s task is to cultivate a working-class consciousness. The wrinkle is that working-class voters believe strongly in merit and hard work, notes Nicholas Jacobs, a political scientist at Colby College. They tend to be less enthusiastic about expanding government services while distrusting pointy-headed types who use words like “systemic”. Tellingly, in polling, only white left-leaning college grads count “tax the rich” as a top-ten priority.

Save America Act Would Backfire on the GOP

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.  Trump keeps pushing the myth of widespread fraud in US elections. He is demanding that the Senate pass the Save America Act. It would backfire on the GOP.

 Amy B Wang, Scott Clement and Lydia Sidhom at WP:

Everyone would need to present a photo ID to cast a ballot. But the bill would have the greatest impact on the registration process. While the bill does not explicitly require everyone to reregister to vote, a significant number of currently registered voters could be asked to provide documentation to remain on the rolls. Others may have to reregister because of a move or a name change. And this registration would need to take place in person.

An analysis by The Washington Post found that a greater number of Republican-held congressional districts have at least 5 percent of residents who would need to reregister to vote because they are considered “inactive voters.” That means they failed to verify their address with election officials, haven’t voted in two or more consecutive federal elections, or have no valid or current address on file. In about 54 percent of Republican-held congressional districts, at least 5 percent of residents would have to reregister to vote, more than the 36 percent of Democratic-held congressional districts in which at least 5 percent of residents would need to reregister.

About 21 million U.S. citizens of voting age (9 percent) do not have or lack easy access to documents proving their citizenship, according to a 2023 survey conducted by the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement, VoteRiders and the Brennan Center for Justice.

About 2.6 million Americans of voting age (1 percent) do not have any government-issued photo ID, while 34.5 million (15 percent) do not have a driver’s license or official state ID card that has their current name and address, according to the survey. Under the Save America Act, student IDs and other state licenses or ID cards would not be accepted.

As many as 69 million married women in the United States do not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name, according to the Center for American Progress, and they could face additional hurdles if they need to register to vote.

Much of the real-world impact would ultimately depend on how states implement the verification requirements — whether they already collect proof of citizenship from voters, for example.

Wren Orey and William T. Adler at the Bipartisan Policy Center:

Research from Pew Research Center finds that Republican women are about half as likely as Democratic women to keep their last name after marriage (10% versus 20%), suggesting that Republican voters may be somewhat more likely to have to complete additional steps 4 linking their birth certificate to their current voter record.

In short, birth certificates are a less reliable form of documentary proof than passports. Because Republicans are more likely to rely on them than Democrats, they may ultimately be more disadvantaged by documentary proof requirements.

Democrats do better among voters with more years of education.  And they find that this variable correlates with passport possession:

• No HS 16%
• HS 30%
• 2-yr 41%
• Some college 37%
• 4-yr 61%
• Postgrad 72%

Marc Novicoff  at The Atlantic:

One recent YouGov poll showed that 64 percent of Harris voters reported having a valid passport compared with 55 percent of Trump voters. According to an analysis by the voting-rights nonprofit Secure Democracy USA, the 13 states in which people are least likely to have a passport voted for Trump in 2024. Passports are especially rare in rural counties, where Republicans run up the score, Daniel Griffith, the author of the report, told me.

 

Blacklist

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration  has been full of ominous developments. Last week, a gunman murdered Charlie Kirk. Trump and his followers are exploiting the tragedy to attack their opponents.

Mike Allen at Axios:

Prominent right-wing influencers are amplifying screenshots of anti-Kirk social posts along with names and employers, tagging companies directly and urging their followers to demand firings. Numerous employees have been fired or suspended.An anonymous website claims to be building a searchable database with more than 50,000 submissions — at one point branding it the "largest firing operation in history."

Participants in the massive grassroots campaign dismiss accusations of right-wing "cancel culture," framing it as a moral test: If you cheer an assassination, your employer should know.Trump officials have embraced the effort: Several members of the military have already been fired after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth directed Pentagon staff to monitor social media posts.

"These are radicalized people," Miller furiously declared on Fox News, citing examples of teachers, nurses and federal workers celebrating Kirk's death. "There is a domestic terrorist movement in this country."

 Rebecca Carballo at Politico:

Universities in red states have fired or suspended employees regarding social media posts about Charlie Kirk’s death that school leadership found inappropriate, underscoring how fraught freedom of speech on college campuses is becoming.

The firings and suspensions come after backlash from Republican elected officials. In some cases lawmakers shared screenshots of employee posts on their social media accounts.

Clemson University, a college in South Carolina, announced on Saturday that it suspended one of its employees. The school said it is continuing “to thoroughly review the inappropriate social media content posted by employees in response to the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk.” The university said it would be providing no further details since it’s a personnel matter.

The employee’s suspension comes one day after House Judiciary Republicans posted “Defund Clemson” on X in response to the university’s statement condemning endorsement of political violence, while also reaffirming its commitment to free speech. Other Republicans chimed in.

“Free speech doesn’t prevent you from being fired if you’re stupid and have poor judgement,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a post on X.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-N.C.) also publicly condemned the university for not firing employees she believed made inappropriate comments about Kirk.

Cumberland University, in northern Tennessee, announced on Friday that two employees — an assistant coach and an English professor — were no longer at the university. President Paul Stumb said that the employees “made inappropriate comments on the internet related to the tragic shooting of Charlie Kirk.”

“This decision was not made lightly,” Stumb said in a statement. “We understand the importance and impact of this action, and we want to emphasize that we conducted a comprehensive investigation prior to making our decision.”

Diploma Divide on the Hill

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Volden C, Wai J, Wiseman AE. On the Decline of Elite-Educated Republicans in Congress. Perspectives on Politics. Published online 2025:1-13. doi:10.1017/S1537592725102260

We identify a rise in educational polarization among members of the US Congress mirroring the educational polarization in the American mass public. Over the past half-century, the percentage of Republican representatives who attended elite educational institutions declined from 40% to 15%, and the percentage of similarly educated Republican senators declined from 55% to 35%, while the ranks of elite-educated Democrats rose in both chambers. These changes across the parties have mapped into observable differences in behavior and approaches toward lawmaking. We find that elite-educated legislators are much more liberal in their voting patterns, suggesting a link between the decline in elite-educated Republicans and ideological polarization in Congress. We also demonstrate that, in the House, elite-educated Democrats are especially effective lawmakers, but not so for elite-educated Republicans. In the Senate, we establish a link between the decline of elite-educated Republicans and the rise of partisan warrior “Gingrich Senators.” Overall, these patterns offer initial glimpses into how political elites are being drawn from different educational cohorts, representing an important transition in American governance.

 

Malevolence Compounded by Incompetence

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. Its incompetence extends to current officials and nominees.

Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to Singapore was told to “shape up and do some homework” as he struggled to answer questions about the country.

Read the full story here: https://t.co/ny8TosCYlW pic.twitter.com/tM1uN2UVKT

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) July 10, 2025

Someone tell Education Secretary Linda McMahon it's AI, not A1.... @Lesdoggg pic.twitter.com/tpVINadjwO

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 7, 2025

Yes, Hegseth should resign. Glad Sen. Tillis and Rep. Bacon are there now, but it should have happened in April. (Or, more accurately, he should never have been confirmed).https://t.co/2m8XtpHue6

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 10, 2025

Opinion on Trump Policies

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. 

Karlyn Bowman at AEI:

Trade: Trump has discussed a new 10 percent tariff on imports from China and a 25 percent tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada. There is longstanding concern in public opinion about China’s unfair trade practices as well as sustained support for protecting workers’ jobs and American manufacturing. Fifty-two percent of registered voters in the new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll favored imposing tariffs on China. Fewer, 40 percent, supported new tariffs on Canada and Mexico. In a new AP/NORC poll, only 29 percent favored a tariff on all imports, while 46 percent opposed the idea. Sixty-eight percent in the Wall Street Journal poll said new tariffs would raise prices.

Immigration: Americans want policymakers to get serious about the border and illegal immigration. In the Harvard/Harris poll, 61 percent favored closing the border and reinstating past policies that discouraged illegal immigration (39 percent were opposed). Seventy-one percent favored deporting undocumented or illegal immigrants who have committed crimes (29 percent were opposed). There is majority support in several polls for mass deportations. The new Fox poll, however, provides a more nuanced impression: 30 percent of registered voters wanted to deport all illegal immigrants, 50 percent deport only those with a criminal record (but allow those without a record to remain and eventually qualify for citizenship), and 10 percent allow all illegal immigrants to stay.

NATO: For years, Americans have believed our NATO allies aren’t contributing their fair share to defense costs. Forty-five percent in the Harvard/Harris poll wanted to raise NATO members’ minimum contributions to 5 percent of their GDP, but 55 percent were opposed to this substantial increase which is larger than what the US spends on its own defense. Only 24 percent wanted to withdraw from the alliance.

Energy and Environment Policy: Americans want to tap America’s vast energy potential — but carefully. Forty-seven percent in the Harvard/Harris poll favor undoing Biden’s ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, but 53 percent are opposed. In the AP/NORC poll, the public split more evenly on increased oil drilling on federal lands, with 35 percent in favor, 39 percent opposed, and 25 percent in the middle. In the Wall Street Journal poll, 50 percent favored easing these regulations, but 46 percent were opposed. More than twice as many Americans opposed withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement as favored the action, 52 percent to 21 percent. As the data on NATO and energy show, Americans see value in working with other countries to address problems.

Pardons: In the AP/NORC poll conducted before Trump’s executive order, 60 percent opposed pardoning most people who participated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, with 21 percent in favor. The Wall Street Journal poll found 57 percent opposed and 38 percent in favor.

Government: Americans have long believed that the government in Washington is wasteful and inefficient. In the Journal’s poll, 53 percent wanted Trump to make changes in how government is run, but 61 percent opposed closing the Department of Education. Sixty-one percent opposed replacing thousands of career civil servants with presidential appointees.

MAGA Lite

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  

Aaron Zitner and Xavier Martinez at WSJ:

Some 53% want Trump to make significant changes in how government is run once he is inaugurated Monday. But more than 60% oppose one of his central ideas for doing so—replacing thousands of career civil-service workers with people chosen by the president.

More than 60% also oppose eliminating the Education Department, a marquee Trump proposal for paring the federal government. Only 18% would supersede congressional powers and give Trump more authority over federal spending, as he has proposed.

Similarly, the poll finds that, while voters want Trump to build his promised wall along the border with Mexico and address illegal immigration, they also want limits to his plans for sweeping deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Nearly three-quarters say that only those with criminal records should be removed from the country, and 70% would protect longtime residents from removal if they don’t have criminal records. Trump is planning to scrap a policy that focused arrests on serious criminals and discouraged officials from targeting illegal residents who have no criminal record.

School Choice Loses

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

Eli Hager and Jeremy Schwartz at Pro Publica:

Coming into this week’s election, Donald Trump and Republicans had hoped to reverse that sort of popular opposition to “school choice” with new voucher ballot measures in several states.

But despite Trump’s big win in the presidential race, vouchers were again soundly rejected by significant majorities of Americans. In Kentucky, a ballot initiative that would have allowed public money to go toward private schooling was defeated roughly 65% to 35% — the same margin as in Arizona in 2018 and the inverse of the margin by which Trump won Kentucky. In Nebraska, nearly all 93 counties voted to repeal an existing voucher program; even its reddest county, where 95% of voters supported Trump, said no to vouchers. And in Colorado, voters defeated an effort to add a “right to school choice” to the state constitution, language that might have allowed parents to send their kids to private schools on the public dime.

Expansions of school vouchers, despite backing from wealthy conservatives, have never won when put to voters. Instead, they lose by margins not often seen in such a polarized country.

Coming Apart, Falling Behind

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020. Our next book will discuss the extraordinary fight between an elderly white ex-president and a younger Black/Asian woman. Class and education are part of the story.

Vice President Kamala Harris is counting on record support from college-educated voters to help propel her candidacy across the finish line. https://t.co/noqrlhDt2V

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 26, 2024

Emily Badger, Robert Gebeloff and Aatish Bhatia at NYT:

Take white men working without a college degree. In 1980, they made more than the average American worker.

But over 40 years, even as their inflation-adjusted income has remained relatively flat, they’ve fallen well below the average income.

In the reordering of the U.S. economy since 1980, white men without a degree have been surpassed in income by college-educated women.

What this captures is a sense of relative standing — not just how well you do on your own terms, but how you fare compared with everyone else. In short, a sense of status.

As the American economy has shifted over the past 40 years away from manufacturing and toward services and “knowledge” work, this less visible hierarchy within the economy has shifted, too. Jobs that helped build the nation, like the machinists and metalworkers who were mostly white men without college degrees, today make a shrinking share of what the average American worker does. Newer kinds of work, like financial analysis and software development, have come to pay much more.

The economy has effectively devalued the work and skills of some Americans, while delivering mounting rewards to others — reordering the status of workers along lines that increasingly shape the country’s politics too.

Composition of the Electorate

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020. Our next book will discuss the extraordinary fight between an elderly white ex-president and a younger Black/Asian woman.

Ron Brownstein at CNN:

Extending a pattern that stretches back decades, White voters without a college degree, the cornerstone of the modern GOP coalition, have declined by a little more than 2 percentage points as a share of eligible voters since 2020, falling below 40% of the eligible voting pool for the first time ever, according a new analysis of the latest Census Bureau data by demographer William Frey shared exclusively with CNN.

While those working-class Whites are shrinking, Frey found that both Whites with at least a four-year college degree and voters of color have each increased since 2020 by about a single percentage point as a share of eligible voters. Those increases also continue long-term trends that have seen well-educated Whites grow to represent more than 1-in-4 eligible voters and people of color rise past 1-in-3.

These trends help explain why the former president has devoted so much effort to reaching beyond his traditional base of White voters without a college education to attract more Black and Latino voters, especially men. And, in turn, the trends help explain the emphasis the vice president is placing on attracting more college-educated White voters who have previously leaned toward the GOP — a priority she underscored by barnstorming across populous white-collar suburbs outside Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee with GOP former Rep. Liz Cheney on Monday.

...

He also found that women will comprise nearly 52% of all eligible voters, which should help Harris. But his analysis shows that number actually represents a very small shift in the eligible electorate since 2020 toward men, which at the margin might benefit Trump. Frey also finds that Generation Z will make a big jump in their share of eligible voters, from about 1-in-10 last time to more than 1-in-6 this year. That increase underscores the stakes in Harris’ attempt to max out her support among younger women and Trump’s determined attempts to court young men.

Noncollege Whites and Wisconsin

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020. 

 Theodoric Meyer at WP writes about noncollege white voters

Biden still trails Trump by big margins with these voters, but he seems to be holding onto more of them in Wisconsin than in other swing states. He lags behind Trump by 13 points among White voters without degrees in Wisconsin, versus 27 points in Michigan and 21 points in Pennsylvania, according to Washington Post averages of recent polls.

Biden’s reelection odds increasingly hinge on winning all three of those states as he struggles with Black and Hispanic voters frustrated with his handling of the economy. Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin each have fewer racial minorities and higher shares of White voters without degrees than other swing states.

That’s especially true in Wisconsin, where those White voters make up 58 percent of registered voters — a higher share than any other battleground state. Biden lost those voters by 14 points when he won Wisconsin in 2020, according to an average of post-election estimates.

“In order to win, Democrats have to overperform — by a lot — with White working-class voters in the state, because most voters in Wisconsin are White working-class voters,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler said. “No one who’s active in politics forgets that for a second."

The race between Biden and Trump is incredibly close, with a small number of swing voters in six battleground states — including Wisconsin — expected to decide the election.

Wisconsin Democrats attribute part of Biden’s relative strength with White voters without degrees to a rural progressive tradition that has faded but not disappeared — and part of it to tenacious organizing, including in rural areas where many of those voters live.

Biden’s campaign is investing in an unprecedented field operation in Wisconsin, with 47 coordinated campaign offices across the state — more offices than Biden has in any other battleground state and far more than Republicans have in Wisconsin — staffed by more than 100 full-time campaign workers.

Deepening Diploma Divide

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  

Nate Moore at The Liberal Patriot:

We are on track for a historically large education divide among white voters. An average of recent polls finds Joe Biden winning white college-educated voters by 18 points and losing white non-college voters by 27 points—a colossal gap of 45 points. 

Compared to 2020 results, Trump’s margin with non-college whites is holding steady, while Biden has significantly improved his standing with degree-holding whites. Such Democratic improvement is certainly welcome for Team Biden, but not unexpected. College-educated white voters have been shifting blue for a decade, driven left by Trump and the GOP’s hardline cultural stances. The flip side of the demographic coin is that nonwhite voters, particularly those without a degree, are moving towards Republicans. Should current trends continue, education polarization—rather than racial—will become the defining feature of American elections. 

 

Divided, Indeed

 In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.    It is the "coalition of the ascendant" v. "the coalition of the resentful.

From Pew:

The rural - urban divide

The racial and educational divide:

The religious divide:

Brahmin Left, Populist Right, and Views of the Economy

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the politics of economic policy.  Objective indicators are doing great. Perceptions, not so much.

 Ruy Teixeira at AEI:

Right now, it looks more like a “Brahmin Left” vs. “Populist Right” election.

“Brahmin Left” is a term coined by economist Thomas Piketty and colleagues to characterize Western left parties increasingly bereft of working-class voters and increasingly dominated by highly educated voters and elites. The Brahmin left has evolved over many decades and certainly includes today’s Democratic Party.

As a Brahmin left party, the temptation is great for Democrats to lean into their emerging strengths and just hope for the best among working-class voters. That is the natural inclination of the elites and activists who now dominate the party.

And indeed there are a couple of potent issues Democrats are planning to run on that are dear to the hearts of their Brahmin left base: abortion rights and defending democracy (“Democracy is on the ballot”, etc.) While for sure these are good issues for the Democrats, especially for your college-educated next door neighbor who would sooner take a bath in hot coals than vote for Trump, it must be recognized that these issues are not as potent and overriding for working-class voters. They are less convinced—far less convinced—that a great analogy for America today is Weimar Germany, 1932. Their concerns are more mundane, connected to their everyday material concerns and relatively conservative values.

Economic indicators are generally looking positive. Roger Lowenstein writes at the NYT that this trend does not mean automatic political gain for Biden:

But voters aren’t economists. They often judge presidents on the basis of coincident economic performance. Jimmy Carter had to deal with serious inflation, and George H.W. Bush endured a recession; each was voted out. Mr. Bush’s successor Bill Clinton reaped the recovery; he got four more years.

Mr. Biden inherited a tough hand: an economy upset by Covid and supply chain disruptions. Yet he presided over a return to growth and dodged a much-predicted recession. (Touch wood.) Jobs came roaring back. Early last year, unemployment dipped below the prepandemic low of 3.5 percent under Mr. Trump, and it remains a still impressive 3.7 percent.

Wage inequality is also contracting under Mr. Biden. I would argue that voters care less about inequality than pundits do. What voters care most about is whether they are doing better.

And this is where Mr. Biden has fallen short. Inflation has snatched away the gains from even a very strong labor market. Over his first two years, as price hikes outran wages, real median household income fell 2.7 percent. The census has yet to report median income for 2023, but given that real wages were up about 1 percent through November, the cumulative change in household median income, adjusted for inflation, over Mr. Biden’s first three years is likely to be in the range of mildly negative to very mildly positive. In other words, in the all-important category of improving living standards, the country did not make progress.

This shows that jobs and output, while very important, are not the only economic indicators that matter. Inflation matters, too, because high inflation taxes away prosperity. This is one area in which I think the president, along with the Federal Reserve, does bear some responsibility. He was warned by voices in his own party — notably, Larry Summers — that his first budget package, enacted nearly a year after the Covid recession ended, was too big relative to the need. He went ahead, and inflation in 2022 soared to 8 percent, a 40-year high.

 

The DeSantis Case Against California

Our book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom will debate Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Fox News at 6 pm Pacific (9 pm Eastern). “DeSantis vs. Newsom: The Great Red vs. Blue State Debate,” will be 90 minutes long. DeSantis will probably say:

• People are voting with their feet. Between 2020 and 2022, the Census reports, California had a net population loss of 508,903.  Florida had a net population gain of 706,597
• When the Census takes housing costs into account, California has the highest poverty rate of the 50 states, at 13.2 percent.  Newsom will reply that Florida is close behind at 12.7 percent and by the standard poverty measure has a higher rate (13.1 percent v. 11.4 percent.).  See the Census poverty report at page 47.
• California's homeless rate is much higher: 44 per 10,000  v. Florida's 12 per 10,000.
• In October 2023, Florida's unemployment rate was 2.8 percent.  California's was 4.8 percent.  Of the 50 states, only Nevada had higher unemployment.
• In 2022, California had a higher rate of reported crime (499.5 per 100,000) than Florida (258.9 per 100,000).
• The Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index ranks Florida in 4th place among the 50 states. California ranks 48th.
• When Consumer Affairs ranked states by the condition of their roads, California was the fourth-worst, while Florida was the seventh-best.
• On education, US News ranks Florida number one.  California is in 20th place.

DeSantis Doctrine

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The early stages of the 2024 race have begun.

DeSantis is doing very very poorly.

William Galston at WSJ:

Last year several professors and a student filed a suit against Florida’s Stop WOKE Act of 2022—which prohibits Florida’s teachers from promoting eight controversial propositions about race, color, national origin or sex—on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment. In response, Mr. DeSantis’s lawyers argued that “a public university’s curriculum is set by the university in accordance with the strictures and guidance of the state’s elected officials.”

Accordingly, they claimed, “the Florida government has simply chosen to regulate its own speech—the curriculum used in state universities and the in-class instruction offered by state employees—and the First Amendment simply has no application in this context.”

If this argument were to prevail, American public universities would more closely resemble Chinese state universities, where what faculty members say is certainly “government speech.” The line between education and indoctrination would be blurred further.

To be sure, Mr. DeSantis may not bear direct responsibility for the arguments his lawyers made on his behalf. But he is responsible for selecting his principal education advisers and for relying on their views.

Consider Richard Corcoran, former Florida education commissioner and now interim president of New College, an institution over which Mr. DeSantis has asserted direct control. Education, Mr. Corcoran said in a speech to Hillsdale College’s National Leadership Seminar, is “100% ideological.” If so, the only question is which ideology will dominate. Not surprisingly, Mr. Corcoran went on to describe education as “our sword.”

Diploma Divide and Democratic Brahminization

Our more recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses voter demographics and the diploma divide.

 Michael Baharaeen at The Liberal Patriot:

College-educated white voters have been trending more Democratic with little interruption since the 1970s. And while both parties were competitive with non-college whites through the latter half of the 20th century, this group began to definitively break toward Republicans around 2000:

While the Democrats’ losses among white voters without a college degree are well documented, it’s also worth noting that their slide over the past decade with the non-college demographic disproportionately came from non-white voters. This bloc moved toward Republicans by a whopping 19 points between 2012 and 2020. In other words, Democrats have been losing ground with non-college voters of all races.

It is possible that these trends will work out for Democrats as more Americans graduate college. As things currently stand, however, non-college voters make up a far greater share of the presidential electorate (62 percent) than do college degree-holders (38 percent). Though it’s difficult to know for sure which party will ultimately benefit the most from this widening “diploma divide,” it’s likely to continue molding both our politics and the culture in profound ways in the coming years.

Also at The Liberal Patriot, Ruy Teixera writes of the "Brahminization" of the Democratic Party:

Another indicator of the Brahminization of the Democratic Party is the current distribution of congressional seats. Democrats now dominate the more affluent districts while Republicans are cleaning up in the poorer districts. Marcy Kaptur, who represents Ohio’s working-class 9th district and is the longest-serving female member of the House in American history, has said of this pattern:

You could question yourself and say, well, the blue districts are the wealthiest districts, so it shows that the Democrats are doing better to lift people's incomes. The other way you could look at it is: how is it possible that Republicans are representing the majority of people who struggle? How is that possible?

How indeed. Kaptur has a two-page chart that arrays Congressional districts from highest median income to lowest with partisan control color-coded. The first page is heavily dominated by blue but the second, poorer page is a sea of red. You can access the chart here. It’s really quite striking. Overall, Republicans represent 152 of the 237 Congressional seats where the district median income trails the national figure.

In light of all this, consider how Democrats are proposing to run in 2024. First, they are not going to back down an inch on the party’s commitment to cultural leftism, a key marker of the party’s Brahmin turn. Indeed, they believe the abortion issue currently gives them cover in this area due to the Dobbs decision, where the party has been able to occupy center ground in opposition to significant parts of the GOP who wish to ban the procedure. But crime isn’t the abortion issue. Immigration isn’t the abortion issue. Race essentialism and gender ideology aren’t the abortion issue. Even the abortion issue isn’t the abortion issue once you get past opposing bans and start having to deal with the nitty-gritty of setting some limits on abortion access (as the public wants).

The fact is that the cultural left in and around the Democratic Party has managed to associate the party with a series of views on crime, immigration, policing, free speech, and of course race and gender that are quite far from those of the median working class voter (including the median nonwhite working-class voter). These unpopular views are further amplified by the Democrats’ “shadow party” (as John Judis and I put it in our forthcoming book, Where Have All the Democrats Gone?), the activist groups, think tanks, foundations, publications and websites, and big donors, and prestigious intellectuals who are not part of official party organizations, as well as within the Democratic Party infrastructure itself, all of which are thoroughly dominated by the cultural left.

 

College Counties

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020.  College degrees have become a major dividing line.

Charlie Mahtesian at Politico:

In state after state, fast-growing, traditionally liberal college counties are flexing their muscles, generating higher turnout and ever greater Democratic margins. They’ve already played a pivotal role in turning several red states blue — and they could play an equally decisive role in key swing states next year.

One of those states is Michigan. Twenty years ago, the University of Michigan’s Washtenaw County gave Democrat Al Gore what seemed to be a massive victory — a 60-36 percent win over Republican George W. Bush, marked by a margin of victory of roughly 34,000 votes. Yet that was peanuts compared to what happened in 2020. Biden won Washtenaw by close to 50 percentage points, with a winning margin of about 101,000 votes.

Name the flagship university — Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, among others — and the story tends to be the same. If the surrounding county was a reliable source of Democratic votes in the past, it’s a landslide county now. There are exceptions to the rule, particularly in the states with the most conservative voting habits. But even in reliably red places like South Carolina, Montana and Texas, you’ll find at least one college-oriented county producing ever larger Democratic margins.

The American Communities Project, which has developed a typology of different kinds of counties, designates 171 independent cities and counties as “College Towns.” Of those 171 places, 38 have flipped from red to blue since the 2000 presidential election. Just seven flipped the other way, from blue to red, and typically by smaller margins.

Asians and Republicans

Our more recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses voter demographics .

At The Liberal Patriot, Seth Moskowitz analyzes a small but significant GOP shift among Asian Americans:

What makes the 2022 midterms so noteworthy, then, is that they represent a break from the decades-long trend toward Democrats. And when you drill down into the numbers, it becomes clear that two issues in particular are responsible for the Asian American backslide toward Republicans: public safety and education.

Let’s start with the former. As violent crime surged in cities throughout the country in 2020 and 2021, the Democrats in charge of many of those cities largely failed to respond with an effective message or policy agenda. Rather than prosecuting criminals and getting repeat offenders off of the streets, many Democrats took a “root causes” approach that came across as quixotic and ineffective. Moreover, following George Floyd’s murder and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, many people, fairly or not, began to see the Democratic Party as anti-police. For many Asian Americans who live in urban areas, the visible erosion of public safety was unacceptable—and they blamed Democrats for letting it happen.

The first sign that this could pose an electoral problem for Democrats came in early 2022 with the effort to recall San Francisco’s progressive District Attorney, Chesa Boudin. Simmering fury about Boudin’s handling of crime and his seemingly indifferent attitude towards the victims of crime, many of whom were Asian American, eventually boiled over into outrage. And while every major racial demographic favored recalling Boudin, Asian Americans were by far the most supportive, with around 67 percent supporting the recall and only 13 percent opposing.

Frustration about crime wasn’t isolated to San Francisco. Asked in a national poll ahead of the midterms how important crime was to determining their vote, 85 percent of Asian Americans said it was “extremely” or “very” important. And when asked which party handles crime better, Asian Americans broke about even between Democrats and Republicans. Compared to other issues like health care, immigration, and gun control, on which Asian Americans overwhelmingly prefer Democrats, crime is a striking outlier.

The other issue most responsible for Asian Americans’ rightward shift is education. For many Asian Americans, especially those who are immigrants or low-income, education represents the step ladder for reaching a better life for themselves or their children. In recent years, however, Democrats have begun to fold up that stepladder in the name of racial equity. Across the country—from San Francisco to Boston to New York City and beyond—public school systems have tried to restructure the admissions process for “gifted and talented” schools and programs. By replacing academic assessments with lottery systems or other subjective evaluations, these proposals would dramatically reduce the number of Asian American students admitted, sometimes by as much as 40 or 50 percent.

The response from Asian Americans? Anger, resentment, and an electoral backlash. In San Francisco, Asian Americans drove the recall of three school board members who had rammed through one such admissions change. In New York City, frustration with a new admissions process that replaced academic screenings with lottery systems for hundreds of selective public middle and high schools eventually drove Mayor Eric Adams to roll back the unpopular reform.

And while admissions changes like these are certainly animating for many Asian Americans, Democrats are pushing plenty of other education policies that are likely just as politically toxic. One example is California’s attempt to eliminate honors-level classes and prohibit schools from sorting students according to academic achievement. Another is the ongoing attempt to encourage colleges to consider race and ethnicity when deciding which students to admit, something that only 21 percent of Asian American adults support according to a recent Gallup poll. In short, Democratic attempts to meddle with education in the name of equity and social justice at the expense of equality and fairness are driving away Asian American voters.

Mixed Red: WWC Down, Hispanics Up

Our more recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses voter demographics and the diploma divide.

 Thomas B. Edsall at NYT:

One of the most significant developments in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election has emerged largely under the radar. From 2016 to 2022, the number of white people without college degrees — the core of Donald Trump’s support — has fallen by 2.1 million.

Over the same period, the number of white people who have graduated from college — an increasingly Democratic constituency — has grown by 13.3 million.

These trends do not bode well for the prospects of Republican candidates, especially Trump. President Biden won whites with college degrees in 2020, 51-48, but Trump won by a landslide, 67-32, among whites without degrees, according to network exit polls.

...

From 2006 to 2022, the Public Religion Research Institute found, the white evangelical protestant share of the population fell from 23.0 percent to 13.9 percent. Over the same period, the nonreligious share of the population rose from 16.0 to 26.8 percent.

Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University, found that the nonreligious can be broken down into three groups: atheists, who are the most Democratic, voting 85-11 for Biden over Trump; followed by agnostics, 78-18 for Biden; and those Burge calls “nothing in particular,” 63-35 for Biden.

Ruy Teixera at WP:

Catalist data confirm a nationwide shift among Latinos in 2020. The Democrats’ overall margin among this group dropped by 18 points relative to 2016. Cubans had the largest shift of 26 points, but Puerto Ricans moved by 18 points to Trump, Dominicans by 16 points and Mexicans by 12 points. An overall weak spot for Democrats was among Latino men who gave Trump a shocking 44 percent of their two-party vote in 2020.

The unusually broad shift raised the question: Could the trend continue? Since then, the 2022 election contained both good and bad omens for Democrats. The good news is that, with the exception of Florida, they did not lose any further ground among Hispanics. The bad news is that they didn’t win back the ground they lost.

Since then, polls consistently find that Hispanic voters prefer Republicans to Democrats on inflation and handling the economy. Nearly all — 86 percent — Hispanics say economic conditions are only fair or poor and about three-quarters say the same thing about their personal financial situation. By 2 to 1 they say President Biden’s policies are hurting, not helping, them and their families. In a just-released 6,000 respondent poll from the Survey Center on American Life (SCAL) on evolving party coalitions, almost two-thirds believe Biden has accomplished not that much or little or nothing during his time in office.

Six years ago,at TNR, John Judis wrote that Democrats cannot count on a nonwhite majority to bring them back into the majority:

Whiteness is not a genetic category, after all; it’s a social and political construct that relies on perception and prejudice. A century ago, Irish, Italians, and Jews were not seen as whites. “This town has 8,000,000 people,” a young Harry Truman wrote his cousin upon visiting New York City in 1918. “7,500,000 of ’em are of Israelish extraction. (400,000 wops and the rest are white people.)” But by the time Truman became president, all those immigrant groups were considered “white.” There’s no reason to imagine that Latinos and Asians won’t follow much the same pattern.

In fact, it’s already happening. In the 2010 Census, 53 percent of Latinos identified as “white,” as did more than half of Asian Americans of mixed parentage. In future generations, those percentages are almost certain to grow. According to a recent Pew study, more than one-quarter of Latinos and Asians marry non-Latinos and non-Asians, and that number will surely continue to climb over the generations.