The Atlantic: “The best available evidence suggests that the youth-vote shift in 2024 was more a one-off event than an ideological realignment.”

“America’s youngest voters are far likelier to vote Republican than their older siblings,” Axios reports.

“Generation Z may be better understood as two distinct sub-generations — divided, in large part, by how they experienced the shock of Covid-19.”

“Stunning stat: The latest iteration of the Yale Youth Poll found extraordinary 18-point partisan gap between younger and older members of Generation Z. When asked whether they’d pick a Democratic or Republican candidate in the midterm elections, voters age 22–29 favored Democrats by 6.4 points, while those age 18–21 favored Republicans by 11.7 points.”

This is a truly extraordinary finding.

New Yorker: “It used to be progressives who distrusted the experts. What happened?”

“The popularity of labor unions surged over the past decade, while American sentiment toward big business has fallen,” Axios reports.

“The approval switcheroo helps explain, in part, why the Republican Party has been courting labor unions in recent years.”

Sarah Longwell: “Having conducted hundreds of focus groups since 2018, I’ve become well-acquainted with the complex varietals of the American voter. Our rapidly shifting information landscape and cultural incohesion makes them harder to categorize for tidy political-science purposes.”

“I personally find terms like ‘far-left’ and ‘far-right’ or even the word ‘conservative’ to be increasingly meaningless. And there are a fair number of things that used to be axiomatic about politics that no longer are.”

“But one axiom of politics remains true: In the end, it comes down to how people feel about their futures and well-being.”

This is fun: The New Class Bubble Quiz.

It’s only 10 questions. It will tell you whether you’re culturally elite or non-elite, and whether you’re economically elite or non-elite.

Wall Street Journal: “More than 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2024—a less than 1% advance from the year prior… The total fertility rate was around 1.63 births per woman in 2024, slightly higher than a record-low rate recorded in 2023 but far below the rate needed for a generation to replace itself.”

A new Harvard Youth Poll finds more than 4 in 10 young Americans under 30 say they’re “barely getting by” financially, while just 16% report doing well or very well.

Fewer than half feel a sense of community, with only 17% reporting deep social connection.

A new Annenberg Center poll finds a majority of Americans (60%) think the country is going in the wrong direction and a smaller majority (54%) think a year from now the economy will be worse than it is today.

A new Marquette University poll found that 71% of respondents opposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico with only 29% saying they were in favor of the change.

For the first time in decades, the Republicans now lead the Democrats in Nevada voter registration, the Nevada Independent reports.

Charlie Cook: “It used to be that a candidate with some combination of personality, charm, a good story, hard work, and good fortune could win in a state with strong partisan leanings in the opposite direction.”

“Now, that is harder and harder in gubernatorial elections and nearly impossible in Senate races. Federal races and the issues that naturally arise in them are easily nationalized, making it difficult to defy that gravitational pull of partisanship.”

Semafor: “Republicans and Democrats are pulling further apart, new Gallup research suggests, as the share of Americans who identify as moderate has declined over time.”

“Among Republicans, 77% described themselves as conservative in 2024, including 24% who said they were very conservative — both of which are highs since Gallup started polling the question three decades ago. Meanwhile, 55% of Democrats identified as liberal, including 19% who reported being very liberal — also both highs.”

“Overall, 37% of respondents described themselves as conservative and 25% as liberal; 34% say they’re moderate, down from a high of 43% in the 1990s.”

Employee engagement — the involvement and enthusiasm employees feel toward their work and workplace — is at a 10-year low, according to a new Gallup survey.

Derek Thompson: “Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality.”

“Day to day, hour to hour, we are choosing this way of life—­its comforts, its ready entertainments. But convenience can be a curse … Over the past few months, I’ve spoken with psychologists, political scientists, sociologists, and technologists about America’s anti-social streak. Although the particulars of these conversations differed, a theme emerged: The individual preference for solitude, scaled up across society and exercised repeatedly over time, is rewiring America’s civic and psychic identity. And the consequences are far-reaching.”

Michael Mann and Peter Hotez identify climate change, pandemics, and anti-science disinformation as the gravest perils to human civilization.

“Over the past decade, many of us in the scientific community have come to appreciate the existential threat we face today—a threat unlike any we’ve witnessed since the days of the U.S. and Soviet Cold War in the last half of the twentieth century. While even today the specter of nuclear annihilation remains, especially given the escalation of hot wars in Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Iran, we now face entirely new twenty-first-century forces that place the future of humankind in even greater peril.”

Gallup: “Majorities of U.S. adults think 2025 will be a year of political conflict, economic difficulty, international discord, increasing power for China and Russia, and a rising federal budget deficit.”