A new Monmouth poll finds 34% of Americans would like to go and settle in another country if they were free to do so.

Fifty years ago, this number stood at a much lower 10%.

Nate Cohn: “Try to imagine how wide my eyes got when I read an article in The Financial Times arguing that America is undergoing a ‘racial realignment,’ seemingly based on the results of our last New York Times/Siena College poll, which found President Biden leading by a slim 10 points among nonwhite voters, a group that usually backs Democrats by 50-plus points.”

“This claim strikes me as, at best, premature. The general election campaign is barely underway, and poll results in February do not constitute a realignment. As we have written several times: No one should be remotely surprised if Mr. Biden ultimately reassembles his support among Black and Latino voters. Alternately, many of the dissenting voters may simply stay home, as they did in the midterms. This would be bad for Mr. Biden, but it would be no realignment.”

Earlier for members: Are Democrats Losing Support form Voters of Color?

Wall Street Journal: “Young adults in Generation Z—those born in 1997 or after—have emerged from the pandemic feeling more disillusioned than any living generation before them.”

“They worry they’ll never make enough money to attain the security previous generations have achieved, citing their delayed launch into adulthood, an impenetrable housing market and loads of student debt.”

Gallup: “Americans’ satisfaction with the nation’s position in the world is at its lowest since 2017, with 33% satisfied. This marks a slight decline from 37% readings each of the prior three years. Meanwhile, 65% of U.S. adults are dissatisfied with the nation’s global position.”

Derek Thompson: “Several years ago, the political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who is based in Denmark, wanted to understand why people share conspiracy theories on the internet. He and other researchers designed a study that involved showing American participants blatantly false stories about Democratic and Republican politicians, such as Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump. The subjects were asked: Would you share these stories online?”

“The results seemed to defy the logic of modern politics or polarization. ‘There were many people who seemed willing to share any conspiracy theory, regardless of the party it hurt,’ Petersen told me. These participants didn’t seem like stable partisans of the left or right. They weren’t even negative partisans, who hated one side without feeling allegiance to the other. Above all, they seemed drawn to stories that undermined trust in every system of power.”

“Petersen felt as though he’d tapped a new vein of nihilism in modern politics—a desire to rip down the elites, whatever that might mean.”

David French: “This era of American politics will end, one way or the other. And when it does, historians are likely to debate whether its defining characteristic was stupidity or malice.”

“I’ve gone back and forth in my own mind, but I now realize that the two traits have almost fully merged. Malice is creating stupidity, and stupidity is creating malice.”

Patrick Ruffini: “Pennsylvania has gone from a reach for Republicans to one that is arguably the linchpin of any GOP presidential majority. It was the tipping point state in Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 and slightly to the left of 2020’s tipping point, Wisconsin.”

“The results in both years were exceedingly close: Trump went from winning the Keystone State by 0.7 points, or 44,284 votes, to losing it by 1.2 points, or 82,166 votes, four years later.”

Gallup: “Political independents continue to constitute the largest political bloc in the U.S., with an average of 43% of U.S. adults identifying this way in 2023, tying the record high from 2014. Independent identification has been 40% or higher each year since 2011, except for the 2016 (39%) and 2020 (39%) presidential election years.”

“Equal 27% shares of U.S. adults identify as Republicans and Democrats, with the Democratic figure marking a new low for that party in Gallup’s trend.”

New York Times: “There is no single reason that over the past 15 years the Upper Midwest saw Iowa turn into a beacon of Donald Trump’s populism, North and South Dakota shed storied histories of prairie populism for a conservatism that reflected the national G.O.P., and Illinois and Minnesota move dramatically leftward.”

“No state in the nation swung as heavily Republican between 2012 and 2020 as Iowa, which went from a six-percentage-point victory for Barack Obama to an eight-point win for Mr. Trump in the last presidential election.”

“Deindustrialization of rural reaches and the Mississippi River regions had its impact, as did the hollowing out of institutions, from civic organizations to small-town newspapers, that had given the Upper Midwest a character separate from national politics.”

The most-searched term on the political dictionary this year: “RINO“

A new Quinnipiac poll finds 61% of voters say they are hoping to avoid discussing politics while visiting with family or friends this Thanksgiving, while 29% say they are looking forward to discussing politics.

Answers were similar across all listed groups.

“Voters are more pessimistic about the future than they have been in decades,” according to the latest national NBC News poll.  

“The survey finds a record low share of voters — just 19% — who say they feel confident that their children’s lives will be better than their own generation. That’s the lowest level the poll has recorded on this question dating back to 1990.”

Wall Street Journal: “Census Bureau projections released Thursday show that, under the most likely scenario, the U.S. will stop growing by 2080 and shrink slightly by 2100.”

Gallup: “Nearly one in four people worldwide — which translates into more than a billion people — feel very or fairly lonely, according to a recent Meta-Gallup survey of more than 140 countries.”

“Notably, these numbers could be even higher. The survey represents approximately 77% of the world’s adults because it was not asked in the second-most populous country in the world, China.”

Wall Street Journal: “Gaining assets and income pushes voters toward conservative fiscal policies, such as lower taxes, that allow them to keep more of their money, researchers say. As Americans move from midlife to retirement, they are more likely to favor stability over change, and less likely to back liberal policies that upset the social order.”

“This rightward shift is likely to affect who wins elections in 2024 and the years beyond. One in six Americans is age 65 or over, up from one in eight a decade prior, according to the most recent decennial census. A slump in births that started in 2008 will eventually give way to a smaller pool of new, young voters.”

“On its face, the shift bodes well for Republicans. Yet its effects have been muted by the size and liberal bent of millennials now approaching middle age, and the more solidly blue partisanship of Gen Z voters just entering the electorate.”

John Judis: “As late as January 1, 2008, the percentage of Democrats exceeded that of independents as well as Republicans, but since then, the percentage of independents has been growing at the expense of both parties.”

“In March 2023, it hit an all-time high (since Gallup has been asking the question in 1988) of 49 percent. Republicans and Democrats were tied at 25 percent. Of course, when these independents are asked what party they lean to, Democrats and Republicans split the vote, but that’s not the point.”

“The point is that growing percentages of the electorate are alienated from both parties. They might ‘lean’ to one rather than the other, but that is not the same as being hardline partisans that are culturally identified with one party rather than the other. If anything, the cultural identification with the parties is diminishing.”

A new Pew Research poll finds 65% of Americans say they always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics, while 55% feel angry.

By contrast, just 10% say they always or often feel hopeful about politics, and just 4% are excited.