Jonathan Bernstein: “Republicans, as a party, are increasingly similar to that politician who has given up on understanding larger and larger portions of their districts.”
“Given partisan polarization among voters, that may not impede re-election in solidly Republican House districts or states. But it produces a breakdown in representation nonetheless.”
“We expect politicians to be more concerned with their primary and re-election constituencies — their strongest supporters and those who will or might vote for them — than with the rest of the district. But district representation in the U.S. has always worked in part because elected officials paid at least some attention to all the voters in their constituency. They think of themselves as representing Omaha or Oklahoma or some set of towns in central Connecticut — not simply as Democrats or Republicans unmoored from geography and specific citizens.”
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