A new Rasmussen survey finds that 48% of likely American voters say U.S. elections are not fair to voters, while just 39% think elections are fair and 14% are not sure.

David Leonhardt: “In the simplest terms, the Democrats control the White House (and, for now, the Senate) at a time when the country is struggling. Economic growth has been disappointing for almost 15 years now. Most Americans think this country is on the wrong track. Our foreign policy often seems messy and complex, at best.”

“To Americans in their 20s and early 30s — the so-called millennials — many of these problems have their roots in George W. Bush’s presidency. But think about people who were born in 1998, the youngest eligible voters in the next presidential election. They are too young to remember much about the Bush years or the excitement surrounding the first Obama presidential campaign. They instead are coming of age with a Democratic president who often seems unable to fix the world’s problems.”

The Upshot: How birth year influences political views

“The decline of marriage over the last generation has helped create an emerging voting bloc of unmarried women that is profoundly reshaping the American electorate to the advantage, recent elections suggest, of the Democratic Party. What is far from clear is whether Democrats will benefit in the midterm contests this fall,” the New York Times reports.

“With their Senate majority at stake in November, Democrats and allied groups are now stepping up an aggressive push to woo single women — young and old, highly educated and working class, never married, and divorced or widowed.”

Gallup: “Americans’ confidence in all three branches of the U.S. government has fallen, reaching record lows for the Supreme Court (30%) and Congress (7%), and a six-year low for the presidency (29%). The presidency had the largest drop of the three branches this year, down seven percentage points from its previous rating of 36%.”

A new Pew Research survey finds that “just 40% of Americans can correctly identify the partisan balance in both the House of Representatives and the Senate (that Republicans have the majority in the former, and Democrats in the latter). The remaining six-in-ten know only one (33%) or neither (28%) of those facts.”

Pew Research: “Partisan polarization – the vast and growing gap between Republicans and Democrats – is a defining feature of politics today. But beyond the ideological wings, which make up a minority of the public, the political landscape includes a center that is large and diverse, unified by frustration with politics and little else. As a result, both parties face formidable challenges in reaching beyond their bases to appeal to the middle of the electorate and build sustainable coalitions.”

Take the quiz to see where you fit in the nation’s political typology. Leave your observations in the comments.

A new Pew Research survey finds that 47% of Cuban registered voters nationwide now say they identify with or lean toward the Republican Party — down from the 64% who said the same about the GOP a decade ago.

Meanwhile, the share of Cubans who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party has doubled from 22% to 44% over the same time period.

Norm Ornstein: “Does it matter whether the polarization, and the deep dysfunction that follows from it, is equal or not, including to the average voter? The answer is a resounding yes. If bad behavior–using the nation’s full faith and credit as a hostage to political demands, shutting down the government, attempting to undermine policies that have been lawfully enacted, blocking nominees not on the basis of their qualifications but to nullify the policies they would pursue, using filibusters as weapons of mass obstruction–is to be discouraged or abandoned, those who engage in it have to be held accountable.”

“Saying both sides are equally responsible, insisting on equivalence as the mantra of mainstream journalism, leaves the average voter at sea, unable to identify and vote against those perpetrating the problem.”

“How do I say this… men in the South, they are a little effeminate. They just have effeminate mannerisms.”

— Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D), quoted by National Journal.

“For all the talk about how partisan polarization is overwhelming Washington, there is another powerful, overlapping force at play: Voters who are not deeply rooted increasingly view politics through a generic national lens,” the New York Times reports.

“Friends-and-neighbors elections were already a thing of the past in congressional campaigns. But the axiom that “all politics is local” is increasingly anachronistic when ever-larger numbers of voters have little awareness of what incumbents did for their community in years past and are becoming as informed by cable television, talk radio and the Internet as by local sources of news. In this year’s primaries, the trend is lifting hard-liners, but it has benefited more moderate candidates in general elections.”

Nate Cohn: “Hispanic-Americans are growing in number, coveted by the nation’s political parties and deeply in favor of an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws. Given this combination, why does such an overhaul still seem to be such a long shot in Washington?”

“One reason is that no demographic group is more marginalized in American elections than Hispanics. Many are ineligible to vote, while those who can vote often do not or are concentrated in noncompetitive districts and states. The dynamic will be particularly strong in this year’s midterms in November, when Hispanic voters will represent a tiny fraction of the electorate in the states and districts critical to the battle for control of Congress.”

A new Pew Research study finds Republicans and Democrats in Congress “aren’t the only partisans who deeply distrust people from the other side of the aisle,” the New York Times reports.

“Liberals and conservatives prefer to associate with and live near their fellow partisans. They would be unhappy if their children married someone with a different political viewpoint. The result isn’t just polarized politics, but a divided society where liberals and conservatives increasingly keep apart.”

Really amazing charts over at Wonk Wire.

Civic Youth has a great interactive map showing the turnout of young voters over the years.

A new Pew Research survey finds that 36% of the nation’s young adults ages 18 to 31–the so-called Millennial generation– now live in their parents’ home, the highest share in at least four decades.

“A badly botched lethal injection in Oklahoma has not chipped away at the American public’s support of the death penalty, although two-thirds of voters would back alternatives to the needle,” according to a new NBC News poll.

“One in three people say that if lethal injections are no longer viable — because of drug shortages or other problems — executions should be stopped altogether… But many others are open to more primitive methods of putting prisoners to death: 20% for the gas chamber, 18% for the electric chair, 12% for firing squad and 8% for hanging.”

Alan Abramowitz: “Perhaps the single most important political decision that American voters get to make is who will occupy the White House for four years. If social class has a powerful influence on public opinion and political behavior, we should find evidence of its effects in presidential voting decisions. Given the contrasting positions of the two major parties on economic policies benefitting upper and lower-income Americans in recent years, as well as the contrasting backgrounds of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, one might have expected upper-income voters to be much more likely to support the Republican candidate than lower-income voters. However, the evidence displayed in Figure 1 shows that family income was only weakly related to presidential voting decisions.”

Brendan Nyhan: “Just under 9% of members of Congress between 1789 and 1996 were related to a previous member of Congress, according to a 2009 study, including 7% of those who served after 1966. More recently, 12% of all House races without an incumbent candidate between 1994 and 2006 had a member of a political dynasty as a candidate.”

Wall Street Journal: “The urban-rural divide has also grown in presidential contests. In 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton beat Republican George Bush in the 50 densest counties–the most urban in the country–by 25 percentage points. By 2012, Democrat Barack Obama’s advantage in those urban counties had shot up to 38 points.”

“The shift in rural areas has been even more dramatic. In 1992, Mr. Bush won the 50 least-dense counties–the most rural in the country–by 18 points. In 2012, Mr. Romney’s advantage there had roughly tripled, to 53 points.”