Ron Brownstein looks at how the politics of abortion and gay rights are moving in opposite directions.

“Across the U.S., the two issues’ trajectory has strikingly diverged. Gay marriage has rapidly advanced through Democratic-leaning terrain. Meanwhile, in conservative states, Republican governors and legislatures have approved the most concentrated burst of abortion restrictions since the Supreme Court established the nationwide right to the procedure in 1973. In perfect symmetry, 13 states, almost all strongly Democratic, have legalized same-sex marriage, while 13 reliably Republican states have banned abortion at 22 weeks or earlier.”

While the balance of opinion toward abortion nationwide has remained largely steady over the past 20 years, Pew Research finds widening disparities in public attitudes on the issue across different regions of the country.

“Opposition to legal abortion is highest in parts of the South – including Texas, which recently passed sweeping new abortion restrictions. The South Central region is the only one in which opposition to legal abortion has significantly increased since the mid-1990s. By contrast, support for legal abortion remains highest in New England – and the gap between New England and South Central states has widened considerably over the past two decades.”

“By a margin of 56% to 27%, more Americans say they’d prefer to impose limits on abortions after the first 20 weeks of pregnancy rather than the 24-week mark established under current law,” according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

“Another 10% surveyed in the poll volunteered they would prefer to outlaw abortion in the United States altogether or limit it earlier than 20 weeks after fertilization. At the same time, however, 54% say they oppose state laws that make it more difficult for abortion clinics to operate; compared to 45% who support such legislation.”

A new USA TODAY/Bipartisan Policy Center poll
“finds that Americans by more than 2-1 say the best way to make positive
changes in society is through volunteer organizations and charities,
not by being active in government. Those younger than 30 are
particularly put off by politics. They are significantly less likely
than their parents to say participating in politics is an important
value in their lives.”

A new study in the Journal of Politics by Andrew Healy and Neil Malhotra finds that young men who were raised with sisters are more likely to express socially conservative views on attitudes about gender roles.

“Having sisters makes males more politically conservative in terms of their gender role attitudes and their partisanship. Particularly for gender role attitudes, we find that these political socialization effects persist until respondents are well into adulthood.”

[Read more…]

A new Gallup survey finds that despite a high 85% of Americans saying they are “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American, 71% say the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be disappointed in today’s United States, while 27% say they would be pleased.

“Perhaps today or certainly sometime very soon, another baby will be born or a new immigrant will arrive and the number of Latinos in California will equal the state’s non-Hispanic white population,” the Sacramento Bee reports.

“The change… has long been predicted by state demographers. It won’t instantly make Latinos an equally powerful political force in California, or bring their incomes into parity with non-Hispanic whites, or close the school achievement gap. But it is an important milestone – and a reminder that these other goals will become easier to achieve as the number of Latinos continues to grow.”

First Read: “If you follow American politics day by day, tweet by tweet, poll by poll, and speech by speech, it’s easy to lose sight of the biggest story over the past five years — just how much change (both socially and demographically) this country has witnessed over the past four years. The nation has its first African-American president who won re-election a year ago. A majority of Americas now support gay marriage, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that married same-sex couples are entitled to federal benefits. The country is on track to be a majority-minority nation 30 years from now. And the Senate is poised to pass immigration legislation giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. Taken together, this is a stunning amount of social change in a very short period of time.”

“And all of that change helps to explain much of the partisanship and politics over the past four years. After all, when one side is pursuing change, the other side is often resisting it.”

Pew Research looks at the new Census Bureau report on the ethnic breakdown of voters and “if you’re a Republican thinking of running for president one day, you may be a bit concerned.”

“First, whites were 74% of voters last year at a time when they were just 63% of the population. This racial turnout gap is driven by the fact that a disproportionate share of non-whites are either too young to vote, not eligible to vote (because they’re not citizens), or just don’t vote. All of these factors could change over time.”

“Second, if we look at the 2060 projections, we can see that there’s a lot more diversity yet to come. The Census Bureau makes its projections based on an analysis of fertility rates, mortality rates and immigration trends. They’re not set in stone. Things change. But they give a sense of the general direction of things. And many of these future demographics are already a reality–for example, about half of newborns in 2010 were non-white.”

Charlie Cook: “President Obama carried the 18-to-29-year-old voting bloc by 34 points in 2008 and by 23 points last year. But a new national survey of millennial voters conducted by Harvard’s Institute of Politics suggests this emerging generation might not be as locked into the Democratic camp as conventional wisdom suggests, and that young voters exhibit some of the same stark partisan divides as older Americans.”

Also important: “The poll shows that young voters’ trust in their leaders and political institutions is low and dropping.”

Garry South: “In three of the last four non-presidential elections, Republicans actually nominated Latinos for statewide office: Ruben Barrales for controller in 1998, Gary Mendoza for insurance commissioner in 2002 and Maldonado for lieutenant governor in 2010. All three were attractive, articulate candidates with compelling personal stories. But all three went down in flames, receiving an average of only 37.9% of the vote. And there is no indication in post-election analyses that they received any meaningfully higher share of the Latino vote than a white male GOP candidate would have gotten. In fact, the last Republican Latino statewide officeholder was elected 142 years ago, when Romualdo Pacheco won the lieutenant governorship in 1871, then served several months as governor in 1875.”

Bloomberg reports on how Democratic activists “have come to Texas on a mission as large as the state’s 261,000 square miles: to capitalize on the surge in Hispanic population and turn the Lone Star State into a two-party competitive one instead of the place where the Republican nominee has carried every presidential election since 1976.”

“Today, more people than ever before — 69.5 million Americans, from college students to retirees to welfare beneficiaries — depend on the federal government for housing, food, income, student aid, or other assistance once considered to be the responsibility of individuals, families, neighborhoods, churches, and other civil society institutions.”

— Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), quoted by the Huffington Post, in a letter to staff upon taking over as head of the Heritage Foundation.

A new Pew Research poll finds for the first time that a majority of Americans favor legalizing the use of marijuana, 52% to 45%.

“Support for legalizing marijuana has risen 11 points since 2010. The change is even more dramatic since the late 1960s. A 1969 Gallup survey found that just 12% favored legalizing marijuana use, while 84% were opposed.”

Politico: “Minnesota topped the
turnout list for the eighth time in the last nine presidential and
midterm elections, with 76.1 percent turnout. Hawaii came in last, with
turnout at a mere 44.1 percent. Overall turnout was down from 62 percent
in 2008, when the possibility of the nation’s first black president
caused a surge at the polls, to 59 percent in 2012. Low turnout in the
nation’s three most populous states — Texas, New York and California —
contributed to the drop. All saw declines of nine percent or higher.”

A fascinating new study finds that politicians significantly overestimate the conservatism of their constituents on several key issues, including universal health care and same-sex marriage, the Huffington Post reports.

For example, a survey of voters found they supported gay marriage and universal health care by 10 percentage points more than their own politicians had estimated in a separate survey. For conservative politicians, the spread was near 20 percentage points.

The authors conclude: “Most politicians appear to believe they are representing constituents who are considerably different than their actual constituents.”

“The University of Texas will change its colors to maroon and white before Texas goes purple, much less blue.”

— Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), quoted by the Wall Street Journal, dismissing predictions that Texas could become a swing state soon.

Politico: “California fancies itself as a trendsetter and Florida prizes its claim as a microcosm of America. But when it comes to politics — both present-day battles and future trends — ground zero right now is the fastest-growing of the mega-states: Texas.”