Gallup: “Americans have shifted back to favoring a more hands-off approach for government in addressing the nation’s problems after a rare endorsement of a more active role last year. Currently, 52% say the government is doing too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses, while 43% want the government to do more to solve the country’s problems.”
“In contrast, a record-high 54% of U.S. adults last year said the government should do more to solve problems.”
Karen Tumulty: “A raft of evidence suggests that female voters, whose engagement and activism fueled the gains that Democrats made during Donald Trump’s presidency, are increasingly tuning out politics.”
“In one survey conducted in May by the Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, nearly half of women in key swing states said they were ‘paying less attention to what happens in Washington’ than they were when Trump was in the White House. This was particularly true among female Biden voters who are independents, under the age of 35, college graduates and city dwellers. Focus groups that American Bridge 21st Century conducted in August with women in Pennsylvania and Arizona found much the same thing.”
A new Joint Venture Silicon Valley poll finds that 55% of the residents living in the San Francisco Bay Area say they are considering moving out of the area permanently.
Of those who were likely to leave, 84% cited the cost of living as a major reason and 62% cited the quality of life.
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The majority of Americans polled in a new CBS News survey said they haven’t sent a handwritten letter in the mail in over five years.
Dan Balz: “For the past decade the state has been an incubator for the kind of tribal politics and deep divisions that characterize civic life in Washington and much of the rest of the nation. While Wisconsin has been closely divided for a long time — four of the last six presidential elections were decided by less than a percentage point — the widening gulf between the two parties exposed in 2011 foreshadowed the extent to which American politics would come to focus more on the extremes rather than the middle of the political spectrum.”
“This has made Wisconsin not a purple state, as many people suggest, but two states in one — the first comprising a few heavily populated blue enclaves and the second a red sea of rural, small-town and suburban geography that surrounds those blue pockets.”
A new Gallup poll finds just 44% of U.S. adults say they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in people who hold or are running for public office, rivaling the record low of 42% from 2016.
Meanwhile, only 55% express a similar level of confidence in the judgments of the American people under the democratic system, the lowest Gallup has measured to date.
New York Times: “The share of the Democratic presidential vote in the Midwest declined most precipitously between 2012 and 2020 in counties that experienced the steepest losses in manufacturing and union jobs and saw declines in health care, according to a new report to be released this month.”
“The party’s worsening performance in the region’s midsize communities — often overlooked places like Chippewa Falls, Wis., and Bay City, Mich. — poses a dire threat to Democrats, the report warns.”
A new University of Virginia Center for Politics survey looks at the persistent divisions between Trump and Biden voters:
“New research shows girls are being socialized early in life to believe they don’t belong in politics,” The 19th reports.
“A research article published this month in the scholarly journal American Political Science Review found that young children perceive politics to be a space dominated by men. Girls’ perception of this is enforced as they grow older.”
Dan Balz: “It may be time to revisit the old axiom from Tip O’Neill, the former Democratic House speaker from Massachusetts, who famously said that all politics are local. These days, as the California recall election showed, most politics are national.”
Christopher Ingraham: “A new YouGov survey conducted on behalf of a democracy watchdog group finds that 66% of Republicans living in the South say they’d support seceding from the United States to join a union with other Southern states.”
“Secession is actually gaining support among Southern Republicans: back in January and February, 50% said they’d support such a proposal.”
Meanwhile, conservative Ben Shapiro floated the idea of a “friendly separation” of certain states away from the union.
A new CNN poll finds 56% of Americans feel democracy is under attack in this country and 51% say it is likely that elected officials will successfully overturn the results of a future election because their party did not win.
In addition, nearly all Americans feel that democracy in the US is at least being tested: 93% total say that democracy is either under attack (56%) or being tested but not under attack (37%). Just 6% say that American democracy is in no danger.
For members: Democrats Must Make Democracy an Issue In 2022
Nate Cohn: “As they’ve grown in numbers, college graduates have instilled increasingly liberal cultural norms while gaining the power to nudge the Democratic Party to the left. Partly as a result, large portions of the party’s traditional working-class base have defected to the Republicans.”
“Over the longer run, some Republicans even fantasize that the rise of educational polarization might begin to erode the Democratic advantage among voters of color without a college degree. Perhaps a similar phenomenon may help explain how Donald J. Trump, who mobilized racial animus for political gain, nonetheless fared better among voters of color than previous Republicans did, and fared worse among white voters.”
Punchbowl News: “We noticed a trend this summer that’s been building for some time: in the House, politics are increasingly national, and less local than ever. In other words, rank-and-file lawmakers who would be barely recognizable to most Americans on cable television are fashioning themselves as nationwide leaders, spending time on national and global issues instead of developments back home.”
A new NBC News/Generation Lab poll of incoming college students across the country finds 92% of the freshmen — attending either two-year or four-year institutions — say they’re optimistic about their personal lives, including 28% who are “super” optimistic.
Nathan Gonzales: “Within hours of 13 American servicemembers being killed in a terrorist attack outside Kabul airport in Afghanistan on Aug. 26, multiple Republicans called for President Joe Biden to resign. That wasn’t terribly surprising considering former President Donald Trump, his son and others were calling on Biden to resign before the deadly attack.”
“But the broader point remains: The idea of a rally ’round the flag effect is functionally over for the undetermined future.”
A new NBC News poll finds 54% of all adults say abortion should be legal in “all or most cases,” while 42% saying it should be illegal.
“One other thing to consider in this debate: Much of the country appears to be in the middle on abortion… It’s just that our present political system — and our political parties — can’t handle the middle anymore, especially on abortion.”
A new Politico-Morning Consult poll finds that 61% of Americans believe the country is on “the wrong track,” compared to just 39% who say the country is “going in the right direction.”
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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.