“Politically, U.S. Jews on the whole tilt strongly liberal and tend to support the Democratic Party,” Pew Research reports.

“When the new survey was fielded, from late fall 2019 through late spring 2020, 71% said they were Democrats or leaned Democratic. Among Jews of no religion, roughly three-quarters were Democrats or leaned that way.”

“But Orthodox Jews have been trending in the opposite direction, becoming as solidly Republican as non-Orthodox Jews are solidly Democratic. In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, 75% of Orthodox Jews said they were Republicans or leaned Republican, compared with 57% in 2013.”

Politico: “California’s population declined in 2020 for the first time in the state’s recorded history due to Covid-19 deaths, federal immigration restrictions and declining births.”

“Though population growth has slowed dramatically in recent years, compounded by high costs of living and a housing shortage, this was the first time California experienced an actual annual drop since the state began recording such data in 1900.”

“U.S. birth and fertility rates dropped to another record low in 2020 as births fell for the sixth consecutive year to the lowest levels since 1979,” CNBC reports.

“The number of births in the U.S. declined last year by 4% from 2019, double the average annual rate of decline of 2% since 2014.”

The country’s birth rate is so low that it is “below replacement levels,” meaning more people die every day than are being born.

David Byler: “Texas has become a magnet for migrants from inside America. The Lone Star State nets 100,000 people from other states almost every year.”

“Many are moving from big, blue states where homes are more expensive and taxes are higher. New Texans are typically younger — and more likely to be college educated — than the rest of the state’s population.”

“Put simply, people move to Texas — from abroad and other states — because they can make more money, afford a home and raise a family. The economic engine is driving population growth.”

A new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds 64% of Americans are optimistic about the direction of the country.

Associated Press: “When most of the U.S. went into lockdown over a year ago, some speculated that confining couples to their homes — with little to entertain them beyond Netflix — would lead to a lot of baby-making. But the statistics suggest the opposite happened.”

“Births for all of 2020 were down 4.3% from 2019, the data indicates. More tellingly, births in December 2020 and in January and February 2021 — nine months or more after the spring 2020 lockdowns — were down 6.5%, 9.3% and 10% respectively, compared with the same months a year earlier.”

Associated Press: “Once solidly conservative places such as Texas have seen increasingly large islands of liberalism sprout in their cities, driven by the migration of younger adults, who lean Democratic. Since 2010, the 20-34-year-old population has increased by 24% in San Antonio, 22% in Austin and 19% in Houston… In November’s election, two states that also saw sharp growth in young people in their largest cities — Arizona and Georgia — flipped Democratic in the presidential contest.”

“As mostly college-educated transplants have relocated to Denver and its satellite communities, Colorado has gone from being a solidly Republican state to a competitive swing state to a solidly Democratic one. It’s a pattern that some political experts expect could be replicated in other states importing loads of young people, even traditionally conservative Texas.”

“Political engagement by young Americans has surged to a historically high level, and that’s not good news for the Republican Party,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

“A dozen years ago, after President Obama’s election, 24% of Americans younger than 30 reported themselves to be politically active, according to the poll, conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. At the time, the Obama campaign was widely credited with having energized young Americans.”

“Today, that engaged number stands at 36%, maintaining an extraordinarily high level seen during last year’s election. Young Black Americans report the most political engagement — 41%, the survey found.”

New York Times: “Research shows that a voting generation is typically shaped for life by what happens politically in their teen years and early 20s. What have teenagers taken away from all this?”

“The survey revealed a generation of soon-to-be voters who felt disillusioned by government and politics, and already hardened along political lines — something political scientists said was new for people this young. But it also revealed a significant share of teenagers who felt motivated to become involved themselves, whether out of inspiration or frustration.”

Aaron Blake: “Deflection is hardly a new tactic in our politics. But in recent years — and particularly with the increasing prominence of social media — it has become both a lifeblood and a cudgel. Whataboutism has infected our politics like few things have.”

“It’s near-ubiquitous today, particularly among conservatives who have long complained of media unfairness. Few arguments are as appealing in those efforts as whataboutism, given both how easy they are to make and how potent they can be. Persecution — whether real or perceived — is a powerful motivator, and combating such allegations of double standards is hugely difficult given that it’s almost always, to some degree and often to a large one, apples-to-oranges.”

“On the surface, Ohio looks like an island of calm after the turbulent 2020 election: Donald Trump won the state by 8.07 points in 2016 and won it again by 8.02 points in 2020,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“But underneath those stable results, the state saw significant swings at the county level that suggest forces are at work remaking the electorate.”

“Nearly half of the counties in Ohio shifted 4 percentage points or more toward or away from Donald Trump in 2020 compared with 2016.”

Nate Cohn: “Whether religious or political, sectarianism is about two hostile identity groups who not only clash over policy and ideology, but see the other side as alien and immoral. It’s the antagonistic feelings between the groups, more than differences over ideas, that drives sectarian conflict.”

“Any casual observer of American politics would agree that there’s plenty of hostility between Democrats and Republicans. Many don’t just disagree, they dislike each other. They hold discriminatory attitudes in job hiring as they do on the Implicit Association Test. They tell pollsters they wouldn’t want their child to marry an opposing partisan. In a paper published in Science in October by 16 prominent political scientists, the authors argue that by some measures the hatred between the two parties ‘exceeds longstanding antipathies around race and religion.'”

Replacing religion with politics isn’t going to end well.

A new PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll found that two-thirds of Americans are against laws that would limit transgender rights.

That opposition includes majorities of every political ideology from liberal to conservative and every age group.

Like they did with same-sex marriage, Americans have moved much faster towards acceptance than most GOP lawmakers.

Vox: “The US is nearing a tipping point of sorts on marijuana legalization: Almost half the country — about 43 percent of the population — now lives in a state where marijuana is legal to consume just for fun.”

“What’s less clear is how it’ll happen. Maybe it’ll be a slow, state-by-state battle before the federal government ends its own prohibition on cannabis, or maybe federal action will lead to a flurry of states legalizing. What has become clear is that legalization will eventually win, and the vast majority of states, if not all of them, will soon join the ranks of the legalizers.”