Wall Street Journal: “America’s weak population growth, already held back by a decadelong fertility slump, is dropping closer to zero because of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

“In half of all states last year, more people died than were born, up from five states in 2019. Early estimates show the total U.S. population grew 0.35% for the year ended July 1, 2020, the lowest ever documented, and growth is expected to remain near flat this year.”

A new Gallup poll finds 2020 officially became the most stressful year in recent history.

A new Gallup poll finds net confidence in big business among Republican voters is down 30 points from last year, steady among independents, and although still negative overall, up 12 points for Democrats.

Geoffrey Skelley: “Incumbent politicians have moved further toward the political extremes in recent elections partly because they are worried about a primary challenge.”

“But studies suggest that the primary electorate itself isn’t any more ideologically extreme than the general electorate. Rather, the bigger problem is the decline in competitive congressional districts.”

“Only about 1 in 6 congressional districts were ‘swingy’ in the 2020 general election, compared with roughly 2 in 5 in 2000.”

Vice News: “A 1972 MIT study predicted that rapid economic growth would lead to societal collapse in the mid 21st century. A new paper shows we’re unfortunately right on schedule.”

A new Bright Line Watch poll finds 66% of southern Republicans say they want the South to secede from the United States and form a smaller, regional country.

The percentage of Americans who evaluate their lives well enough to be considered “thriving” on Gallup’s Live Evaluation Index reached 59.2% in June, the highest in over 13 years of ongoing measurement.

Jonathan Last: “In order for us to hit a constitutional crisis that wrecks our democracy, only a few things have to happen, none of which are super-low-probability events. If I were laying odds, I’d guess that the near-term chances of us hitting a second consecutive transfer of power crisis are probably a coin-flip.”

“But here’s the thing: A once-a-century transfer of power crisis is a dangerous black swan event. Consecutive transfer of power crises are a new mode of politics. And, frankly, a new mode that I don’t think our democracy could survive.”

New York Times: “Thirteen stripes, a dusting of stars, the American flag has had infinite meanings over the 244 years since the country began flying one… Politicians of both parties have long sought to wrap themselves in the flag. But something may be changing: Today, flying the flag from the back of a pickup truck or over a lawn is increasingly seen as a clue, albeit an imperfect one, to a person’s political affiliation in a deeply divided nation.”

“What was once a unifying symbol — there is a star on it for each state, after all — is now alienating to some, its stripes now fault lines between people who kneel while ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ plays and those for whom not pledging allegiance is an affront. And it has made the celebration of the Fourth of July, of patriotic bunting and cakes with blueberries and strawberries arranged into Old Glory, into another cleft in a country that seems no longer quite so indivisible, under a flag threatening to fray.”

Axios: “The latest census is expected to show the first decline in history for the nation’s non-Hispanic white population… White population growth has slowed in recent decades, largely because of falling fertility rates as Americans wait longer to have kids and have fewer of them.”

Gallup: “Continuing a long-term trend, Americans are discouraged about the state of moral values in the U.S., with 84% calling them ‘only fair’ or ‘poor’ and two-thirds believing they are getting worse rather than better. These negative evaluations differ little from what Gallup has found each year since it began measuring perceptions of the nation’s values in 2002.”

“This stability, however, masks significant changes in Democrats’ and Republicans’ perceptions of U.S. values between 2020 and 2021. Democrats are much less negative about moral values today than they were a year ago. Conversely, Republicans’ views of U.S. moral values have sunk to record lows.”

“Becoming a mother used to be seen as a unifying milestone for women in the United States. But a new analysis of four decades of births shows that the age that women become mothers varies significantly by geography and education. The result is that children are born into very different family lives, heading for diverging economic futures,” the New York Times reports.

“The difference in when women start families cuts along many of the same lines that divide the country in other ways, and the biggest one is education. Women with college degrees have children an average of seven years later than those without — and often use the years in between to finish school and build their careers and incomes.”

Gallup: “Americans are sharply divided in their abortion views, including on its morality, with an equal split between those who believe it is morally acceptable and those who say it is morally wrong.”

“The 47% who say it is acceptable is, by two percentage points, the highest Gallup has recorded in two decades of measurement. Just one point separates them from the 46% who think abortion is wrong from a moral perspective.”

Perry Bacon Jr.: “Take a step back, and it becomes clear that our core divides are fairly simple.”

“I think most of today’s political fights are really about two underlying questions: Will power — cultural, economic, social and political in particular — be taken away from the kinds of people (wealthy, White, Christian, male) who have traditionally dominated most of American life? And, if so, how much and how quickly?”

David Byler: “In Arizona, Georgia, Colorado and Virginia, Democrats cashed in on population growth: They captured millennials, affluent suburbanites and immigrants who flocked to expanding cities, held onto Black voters and overpowered Republicans from small, stagnant metros and no-growth towns.”

“But, in Florida, these small metros and towns grew faster than cities such as Miami.”

“Over the past 50 years, Florida’s smaller cities and towns have become powerful magnets for middle-aged parents and retirees from other states. These older migrants want low taxes, affordable housing and warm weather all year — so they’re pouring into low-cost counties, away from the major cities.”

Associated Press: “Democrats lost last year’s election for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District by the narrowest margin in a House race in almost 40 years. After the six-vote heartbreaker, some expected Democrat Rita Hart to immediately declare a rematch in the southeast district long held by her party.”

“So far, no Democrat has stepped up to run.”

“The hesitancy to jump into a district now as competitive as they come is one measure of Democrats’ fatigue in a state viewed for decades as a true battleground. Even as the coronavirus pandemic gradually wanes and President Joe Biden’s job approval remains strong, Iowa Democrats say they can feel their party receding, particularly from the industrial river towns they once claimed as bastions.”

FiveThirtyEight introduced its partisan lean metric — a way of measuring the partisanship of a state or district.

“For example, if a state has a FiveThirtyEight partisan lean of R+5, that means it is 5 percentage points more Republican-leaning than the nation as a whole. Put another way, in an election that’s exactly tied nationally, we would expect Republicans to win that state by 5 points.”