The following article by Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, co-founder and politics editor of  The Liberal Patriot, is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

Nothing makes the Democratic heart beat faster than a sense that the demographic wind is at their back. They love the idea that they can safely disregard all that messy persuasion stuff to focus on rising demographics and mobilize, mobilize, mobilize.

The current demographic darling is the youth vote, which did indeed perform well for the Democrats in 2022. But much commentary has gone beyond that simple, true observation to portray the youth vote as a tsunami about to overwhelm the Republican Party. To understand why that’s an over-reading of the evidence and what a more balanced perspective on the youth vote should be, here are five things to keep in mind.

1. Age and generation are two different things. Sometimes when commentators speak of the youth vote they seem to be speaking of an age group, typically 18-29. And sometimes they are speaking in generational terms, which are defined by birth years. This now typically includes both the Millennial generation (born 1981-1996) and Gen Z (born 1997-2012). So these “young” voters were 18-41 in 2022.

Since generational ages are not stable, this can lead to confusion. For example, in the Catalist data, the Millennial/Gen Z share of voters went up from 23 to 26 percent of voters between 2018 and 2022, while the vote share of 18-29 year olds went down from 12 to 10 percent and the 30-44 year old share went down from 21 to 20 percent. Huh? But this is easily explained by the simple fact that Millennials/Gen Z in 2018 covered voters ages 18-37, while in 2022 these generations covered ages 18-41. More ages covered = more voters so there’s no need to posit any particularly good turnout performance by these generations.

2. Turnout by age goes up and that affects generations a lot. This is another factor that leads to confusion. As generations age, their turnout (defined as percent of eligible voters that cast a ballot) goes up for many years simply because older voters vote at a much higher rate than younger voters. In fact, the age-turnout gradient is particularly sharp among voters in their twenties and thirties, which of course complicates interpretations of turnout performance among Millennials and Gen Z. This makes it harder—or should make it harder—to ascribe any turnout magic to these generations.

3. Presidential elections are different from congressional elections. In 2022, young (18-29) voters defied the prevailing winds and Democrats improved their marginamong these voters by 5 points relative to 2020. But congressional elections and presidential elections can be quite different, not least because a different, larger group of voters shows up for presidential elections. That affects the attitudinal complexion of all demographic groups, especially a volatile group like young voters.

Consider that Democrats carried the two party vote among 18-29 year olds by 36 points in 2018 only to have that margin decline by 12 points in 2020. And that was with Trump on the ballot. Right now, polls tend to show Democratic weakness among young voters moving into the 2024 cycle. In the latest Washington Post/ABC poll, Biden leads Trump by only 11 points among the 18-39 year old age group (which incidentally covers almost all of Millennials and Gen Z). And in the latest Quinnipiac poll, where Biden leads Trump overall, his lead among 18-34 year olds is a mere 5 points.

4. If something cannot go on forever, it will stop. This saying, attributed to the economist Herbert Stein, is apt. Democrats seem to expect all future generations to exhibit the same Democratic proclivities as the Millennials and Gen Z have. In fact, only about half of Gen Z was even of voting age in 2022 so we really don’t know how the other half will shape up. And succeeding generations—generations post-Z and post-post-Z—who knows? One political carbon copy of the Millennials after another cannot go on forever and, yes, it will stop.

The same can be said about the currently-existing Democratic proclivities of Millennials/Gen Z. They will be susceptible to decay, even if these generations retain a baseline lean toward the Democrats That’s exactly what Nate Cohn showed in a recent piece on generational cohorts. Millennial/Gen Z Democratic support cannot remain at the current high levels forever; it will stop.

5. Demographics are not destiny. This point cannot be repeated enough. The demographics is destiny thesis seems to attract Democrats like moths to a flame. We saw it in the bowdlerization of (ahem) The Emerging Democratic Majorityargument and we’re seeing it today in the enshrinement of generational change as the engine of certain Democratic dominance. Rising pro-Democratic generations = larger share of voters over time = Democratic dominance.

We’ve been here before with the rise of nonwhite voters. Here’s how the argument is being repurposed: if voter groups favorable to the Democrats (racial minorities, now younger generations) are growing while unfavorable groups (whites, now older generations) are declining, that’s good news for the Democrats. This is called a “mix effect”: a change in electoral margins attributable to the changing mix of voters.

These mix effects are what people typically have in mind when they think of the pro-Democratic effects of rising diversity (now generational succession). But mix effects, by definition, assume no shifts in voter preference: they are an all-else-equal concept. If voter preferences remain the same, then mix effects mean that the Democrats will come out ahead. That is a mathematical fact.

But voter preferences do not generally remain the same (see #4). We have seen this in the case of rising nonwhite voter share, as white working-class voters moved toward the Republicans and, more recently, nonwhite voters themselves have become more Republican. This has cancelled out much of the presumed benefit for the Democrats from the changing racial mix of voters.

To summarize how this applies to generations: while the mix effects of generational succession may indeed favor the Democrats, these effects are fairly modest in any given election and can easily be overwhelmed by shifts in voter preference against the Democrats among older generations. In addition, even among pro-Democratic generations (e.g., Millennials and Gen Z), the electoral benefit to the Democrats from their growth can be completely neutralized by shifts against the Democrats within these generations.

In short, there’s no free (demographic) lunch. The boring, tedious, difficult task of persuasion is still the key to building electoral majorities.

At Flux, Jim Carroll, editor of The Hot Screen, provides some messaging tips for Democrats in contextualizing Trump’s indictment and legal problems:

….As Atlantic writer Anne Applebaum riposted in a tweet, “The horrible precedent isn’t that Trump was indicted. The horrible precedent is that we had a president who repeatedly broke the law.” Other media coverage tried to spin the GOP response as a vague “polarization/test of our democracy” moment — but as Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent observed, “Stop saying the indictment ‘tests our democracy.’ The actual ‘test’ we face is Trump’s apparent crimes and the unhinged GOP defense of him, which effectively posits that any/all law enforcement activity involving Trump is inherently illegitimate, no matter what the facts show.”

And though some sources implied America was at a crossroads for doing something that had never been done before (i.e., indicting a former president), they mostly never bothered to point out that plenty of other democracies have charged and convicted heads of state, from Japan and Israel to France and South Korea — facts no further away than in a recent primer by Flux’s own Matthew Sheffield on the topic.

As for the Democrats’ strategic decision to refrain from anything like either a full-throated counter-offensive against GOP disinformation or a solid defense of the American justice system, the passage of time has shown how perilous this conflict-averse approach truly is, as the Republican Party has only continued to blast its illiberal message of distrust in those who administer the law. As former Obama administration official Dan Pfeiffer has warned, “Democrats need to go on offense to push back on Trump’s messaging before he discredits the investigations and distracts the public.” In the absence of a coherent Democratic strategy, the odds increase by the day that Pfeiffer’s dark scenario will come to pass.

Carroll argues further that Democrats “provide a narrative that reminds Americans of the previous decisive points at which the Republican Party chose to increase its devotion to authoritarian means and ends. It seems that an accurate, dynamic portrayal of GOP devolution would be a more powerful message that simply saying “MAGA Republicans don’t share our values” (though the latter message certainly has its place). It’s critical that Democrats not only describe what the Republican Party is becoming, but convey the degree to which the party is still radicalizing, to borrow Zimmer’s phrasing. Not only would this allow the American public to better understand the nature of the current GOP, it would offer a powerful context for interpreting future GOP actions and rhetoric, given that the party only ever moves in one direction these days — ever more to the right.”

Carroll adds,

Likewise, Democrats would do well to play up the corruption and criminality inherent in the GOP’s defense of Trump, a point emphasized by Crooked Media’s Brian Beutler, who writes that, “Democrats should (finally, at long last) wield Trump’s corruption as a wedge—make his crimes a liability not just for him but for any GOP pretenders who defend him”:

What could be easier? Whatever the charging documents allege, we know more or less what Trump’s exposure is. He mounted a coup against the U.S. government, and when the coup failed, he stole a bunch of state secrets.

Democratic leaders, with the possible exception of Joe Biden himself, can choose to exploit that division. They can note that Trump’s defenders have sided against the country with someone who tried to destroy it. They can mount a political offensive based on the importance of protecting these prosecutions from Republican sabotage and force votes on measures that affirm DOJ independence.

Further, notes Carroll:

Like Zimmer, Beutler gets that the importance in the Trump indictment lies not so much in the crimes of Donald Trump as in the grand demonstration of GOP extremism and corruption it has provided. And as Jamelle Bouie highlights in a recent New York Times column, it’s not like this Republican corruption and criminality have come out of nowhere, as if Trump brought a blushingly innocent GOP to the dark side. Bouie suggests that Trump is in fact the culmination of long-running trends in the GOP:

Most things in life, and especially a basic respect for democracy and the rule of law, have to be cultivated. What is striking about the Republican Party is the extent to which it has, for decades now, cultivated the opposite — a highly instrumental view of our political system, in which rules and laws are legitimate only insofar as they allow for the acquisition and concentration of power in Republican hands.

[. . .] there is also the reality that Trump is the apotheosis of a propensity for lawlessness within the Republican Party. He is what the party and its most prominent figures have been building toward for nearly half a century. I think he knows it and I think they do too.

As with the points by Zimmer and Beutler I noted above, Bouie provides valuable context, in a way that breaks simplistic narratives that what is happening in American politics is unprecedented (Trump’s alleged lawbreaking) or incomprehensible (such as the idea that the GOP is going against its (undeserved) reputation as a “law and order” party). Again, it would behoove the Democratic Party to work more vigorously to remind the American public that GOP tendencies towards corruption are long-standing, and in the present day extend far beyond Donald Trump (just take a look at the steady flow of reports of Supreme Court corruption — a new one is out just this week! — to get a sense of how far and wide it goes within the party).

Carroll has more to say about the this context before he concludes “The post-indictment GOP firestorm is a good enough reason in its own right for the Democrats to step up the tempo — but we also need to bear in mind that what we’re seeing now, from both the GOP and the Democrats, is something of a test run in the event of far more existentially serious charges against Trump in connection with attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. I would hazard that what we’ve seen so far will rate as a tempest in a teacup compared to what the GOP will say and do should Donald Trump finally be indicted for his insurrectionism.”

In “Democrats lean on abortion to flip the House — but there’s a catch: Democrats see abortion as a potent issue to attack the GOP House majority, but many of their target districts are in states where abortion rights are protected,” Bridget Bowman writes: “Democrats’ top targets, as they seek a net gain of five seats to flip the House, include 18 Republicans who represent districts President Joe Biden carried in 2020. Eleven of those Republicans hail from New York and California. Still, Democrats believe focusing on abortion helped change the 2022 election — and is a winning strategy for 2024….“This extremism across the country on reproductive freedoms will cost Republicans the House majority,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairwoman Suzan DelBene told NBC News in an interview.…“This is an issue that is now real and visceral. It’s no longer theoretical,” said Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan, who won a special election in New York after the Supreme Court’s decision last year….Ryan also pointed out that abortion will be on the ballot in New York next year, as voters weigh a proposal to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. (Abortion is currently legal under regular state law in New York.) And Ryan noted that New Yorkers would be affected by GOP proposals to institute a federal ban or limit access to pills used in medication abortions…. It does appear that voters are paying attention to abortion policies in other states….In a new NBC News national poll, 57% of voters in the West and 55% in the Northeast, where abortion is largely legal, say that their own states have “struck the right balance” on abortion access. But similar shares of those voters — 58% in the Northeast and 59% in the West — say access to abortion across the country is “too difficult.”

Max Greenwood has an update on Florida Democratic plans to win back the state in the Miami Herald. As Greenwood writes, “Florida Democrats are leaning on their biggest adversary as they look to revamp their party ahead of 2024: Gov. Ron DeSantis….After two tough election cycles in a row — including a particularly bruising 2022 midterm year — the state party has begun an aggressive counteroffensive against DeSantis in an effort to claw its way back from the brink of political irrelevance, seeing the top-tier Republican presidential hopeful as the perfect foil to fuel their political resurgence….The animosity between Florida Democrats and the state’s powerful Republican governor isn’t new. What’s changed, party officials and operatives said, is that DeSantis’ nascent bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination has elevated their platform and allowed them to appeal to national Democrats — including donors — in a way that’s been lacking in recent years….So far, Democrats say, there’s at least some reason for optimism. Democrat Donna Deegan’s win in the Jacksonville mayoral race in May was held up by many in the party as an early sign that their losing streak could be coming to an end….And [Democratic Chair Nikki] Fried said that she’s gotten assurances from President Joe Biden and Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison that national Democrats are still planning to contest Florida in 2024….The DNC recently began running a digital ad in key battleground states, including Florida, targeting several Republican presidential contenders on their abortion stances. That includes DeSantis, who signed a six-week ban on the procedure in April, though that law has yet to take effect….Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic pollster who helped former President Barack Obama win Florida in 2008 and 2012, said that any successful effort by Democrats to put the state back into play is going to require more than just an aggressive counter-messaging campaign against DeSantis….“When there’s a massive, multi-million dollar investment into trying to win Florida that is sustained over time, that’s when I think we can say Florida is potentially back in play,” Amandi said.”

Statewide elections for Attorney General and Secretary of State have often been underreported in major media because they are frequently overshadowed by Senate and Governor races. But they are important because of the recent explosion of voters suppression legislation and “attorneys general can file lawsuits with far-reaching policy impact and because secretaries of state oversee the election process (in most states, anyway),” says Louis Jacobson in his article, “The 2023 and 2024 Attorney General and Secretary of State Races: Amidst several safe-state races with key primaries, competitive contests in North Carolina and Pennsylvania loom” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Jacobson writes further, “The current campaign cycle doesn’t promise quite as much drama as there was in 2022, when several key presidential battleground states played host to tight contests between Republicans aligned with former President Donald Trump and more mainstream Democrats….For the current 2023-2024 cycle, we are starting our handicapping by assigning 18 of the 23 races to either the Safe Republican or the Safe Democratic category. Still, a number of these states will undergo wide-open primaries with different ideological flavors of candidates. And in the general election, we see three races as highly competitive: the attorney general and secretary of state races in North Carolina and the AG race in Pennsylvania….In the 2023-2024 election cycle, at least 6 of the 13 AG races and at least 4 of the 10 secretary of state races will be open seats, often because the incumbent is running for governor — a sign of how these lower-profile offices can serve as important political stepping stones….Meanwhile, the key matchups for the 2024 general election promise to be the AG and secretary of state races in North Carolina and the AG contest in Pennsylvania. (Pennsylvania’s secretary of state is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate rather than elected.) Both states will simultaneously be serving as presidential battlegrounds.” Read the article for Jacobson’s run-down on each of the races.

David Masciotra explains why “Latinos Are Not Flocking to the Far Right: The media are misreading the data and ignoring the majority of Latinos who continue to lean left” at the Washington Monthly: “It’s true that in 2016 and 2020, Trump did make striking gains with Latino voters after Mitt Romney’s terrible performance in 2012. According to the Pew Research Center, the hapless former Massachusetts governor garnered only 27 percent of the Latino vote. Trump posted 28 percent in 2016 than 38 percent in 2020. This is not insignificant. Democratic analysts and operatives would be committing malpractice if they didn’t pay careful attention when a key constituency’s support declines….But what those obsessing about the Latino “drift to the right” never mention is that Romney’s performance among Latinos was one of the worst in the past 40 years. Only Bob Dole in 1996 (21 percent) and George H. W. Bush in 1992 (25 percent) dipped lower, and independent Ross Perot took a piece of the Latino vote in both of those races, 14 and 6 percent, respectively….Moreover, presidential performance is not the only metric we should measure. The Latino vote for Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate in 2020 was even stronger than for Biden. The Latino Policy and Politics Institute at UCLA took a magnifying glass to the Senate results in Arizona, Georgia, Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, and Texas. It reached the following conclusion: “Latino voters supported the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate by wide margins across the five states analyzed. There is no evidence of a ‘drop-off’ in Democratic support for the U.S. Senate.”…Furthermore, the institute found that “Latino voters supported the Democratic Senate candidate over the Republican candidate by at least a 3-1 margin in Arizona, Colorado, and Georgia” and that the margin was 2-1 in New Mexico and Texas. …The numbers for the 2022 midterms were the same. Exit polls gauging support for House candidates revealed that one reason why the Republicans did not enjoy a “red wave” was due to a relatively high turnout from voters under the age of 30. Among Latinos under 30, 68 percent voted for Democratic candidates….When examining voting patterns, journalists could just as easily run lengthy expositions and record television segments on Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania. Seventy percent of them voted for Biden (only 24 percent voted for Trump), proving crucial to his thin margin of victory in the swing state. The story is similar in the battleground state of Arizona. As the Latino Policy and Politics Institute summarizes: “In Arizona, where Latinos represent 25.2% of all registered voters, the size and turnout of the Latino electorate helped Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1996.”

From “Biden has running room this summer. It could decide the 2024 race,” by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr.: “The nation is about to witness a bold experiment. It’s a test of whether normal governing — building stuff, spurring economic development and job creation, trying to anticipate future challenges — still plays a significant role in American politics….Informed skeptics, of course, challenge the idea that elections really revolve around how politicians do their work. Political scientists have found that who wins or loses typically depends on long-standing partisan loyalties, group attachments and gut impressions about whether things are going well or badly….Nonetheless, President Biden’s administration is placing a large bet on the idea that voters still care about whether government is succeeding at the basics: constructing roads and bridges; creating well-paying jobs in new green and tech industries; and managing the federal apparatus without excessive drama….To highlight the calmer side of governing seems out of sync with news cycles overwhelmed by Trump’s indictment and the former president’s wild attacks on the Justice Department. But that is part of the point, since Biden’s case is about both substance and style….The investments in infrastructure, green energy and tech, Biden argued at a union-led campaign rally in Philadelphia on Saturday, are promoting shared growth, especially in parts of the country (many of them rural and Republican-leaning) that have experienced decades of economic turmoil….Biden’s team sees the president as having running room after getting past the debt ceiling crisis with minimal concessions to House Republicans. While this is creating problems for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) with his right wing, and could lead to a new budget showdown this fall, it also means turmoil in Washington is now happening largely on the GOP’s turf.”

“After eight years, Americans have made up their minds about former President Donald Trump,” Nathaniel Rakich writes at FiveThirtyEight. “And it appears that not even a federal indictment is swaying them. According to polls conducted before and after Trump’s indictment on June 8, Trump’s support levels in both the primary and general election don’t appear to have budged, even though a large majority of Americans view the charges as serious. In the Republican primary, he is currently at 53.5 percent support,¹ according to FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average. That’s little changed from June 7, the day before the indictment, when he was sitting at 53.8 percent. (The other candidates have all held roughly steady too.)…It’s not that Americans have somehow missed the news. Trump’s indictment has gotten mountains of media coverage. According to a recent YouGov/CBS News poll, 75 percent of American adults had heard or read at least some about the latest indictment. And overall, they don’t see the content of the charges as frivolous: Sixty-nine percent agreed that, yes, it would be a security risk if Trump had nuclear or military documents in his home after leaving office. Another poll, from Ipsos/ABC News, found that 61 percent of American adults — including 38 percent of Republicans — thought the charges were very or somewhat serious. (Compare that to the 52 percent of adults who thought that about Trump’s first indictment, over hush-money payments to a porn star with whom he allegedly had an affair.)….Per Civiqs/Daily Kos, 50 percent of registered voters believed Trump is guilty of crimes that merit jail time, and 42 percent believed he is not….Trump’s position also hasn’t really changed among the overall electorate. In an average of seven polls² of registered voters taken since the latest indictment, Trump leads Biden in a hypothetical general-election matchup 42.6 percent to 41.4 percent. That’s virtually identical to the average of those seven pollsters’ previous, pre-federal-indictment polls.”

Also at FiveThirtyEight, in “Other Polling Bites,” Rakich notes, “A new Gallup poll has found that Americans have taken a right turn on social issues — or at least, in how they label themselves. Thirty-eight percent of Americans now say they are conservative or very conservative on social issues, while 29 percent say they are liberal or very liberal. In 2022, those numbers were 33 percent and 34 percent, respectively. While independents have gotten a little more conservative over the past year, the shift is primarily being driven by more Republicans identifying as conservative and fewer identifying as moderate….One social issue that that Gallup poll asked about was transgender rights. Fifty-five percent of Americans said that it was morally wrong for people to change their gender, while 43 percent said it was morally acceptable. Americans also said 69 percent to 26 percent that transgender athletes should be allowed to play only on teams that match their birth gender.”

At The Nation, Kate Rader and Carissa Quadron explain “What Running on a Jobs Guarantee Could Mean for Democrats: Candidates hoping to win in 2024 should look to A. Philip Randolph, who knew an economy stuffed with good jobs would gain a political advantage,” and share some of the findings from a new survey launched by the Center for Working Class Politics (CWCP) : “Democrats, regardless of class, overwhelmingly supported the federal jobs guarantee in our survey by a margin of nearly four to one, signaling the popularity of this proposal across the Democratic base. But our results revealed important differences in support for these policies based on the party and class of respondents. First, and most significantly, while both policies were popular across the pool of respondents, the progressive jobs guarantee was most popular among working-class respondents—and not just those who identified as Democrats but also working-class independents and Republicans as well. Importantly, working-class people from either party were more likely to prefer progressive economic policies than their middle- and upper-class counterparts. Working-class independents were also much more likely to support a jobs guarantee than middle-class independents by as much as 20 percentage points. Not only did some Republicans and independents respond favorably to this policy, but the jobs guarantee was also the only economic policy proposal viewed positively by respondents across all parties, which could indicate that it is less likely to generate electoral backlash for a political candidate in a competitive district. In fact, we found that even in the face of Republican opposition messaging, broad support for a jobs guarantee actually increased slightly….A lot has changed since A. Philip Randolph’s push for full employment, but Americans, and particularly working-class Americans, have not stopped craving bold, progressive jobs programs. The issue, however, is that despite serious difficulties engaging working-class voters, progressive jobs policies have not been a priority for today’s Democratic Party. The CWCP’s analysis of hundreds of campaign ads run in competitive districts in the 2022 midterm cycle shows that only 18 percent of Democratic candidates invoked jobs as a key campaign issue….Democrats hoping to win in 2024 should take note: A jobs-focused campaign is not just a winning strategy but also the key to achieving a progressive agenda.”

From “Who are the working class and how will they vote in 2024?” by Lois M. Collins and Suzanne Bates at Deseret News: “America’s working class are still not particularly wowed by the government and are often just plain frustrated. In the poll, 64% of registered voters who identify as part of the working class say the country is on the wrong track, compared to 27% who say it’s on the right track. And a full 52% say their personal financial situation is getting worse, compared to only 20% who say their situation is improving….What makes someone feel like they’re in the working class instead of the middle class? It’s likely related to a feeling of living on the edge financially, according to Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life at American Enterprise Institute….This group has shifted in recent years. While the working class used to be considered solidly in the Democrats’ column, slightly more now say they lean Republican. That was evident in the Deseret News/HarrisX poll, with 40% of working class voters saying the Republican Party best represents their interests and views, compared to 36% who say the Democratic Party is a better fit. Voters who describe themselves as middle class most identified with the Republican Party, at 43% compared to 34% for Democrats, while self-identified upper class voters by far leaned most toward the Democrats, with 56% saying the party best represents their views, compared to 28% saying the same about Republicans….“How people self-identify, and the labels they naturally coalesce around, tells you a lot about their social engagement and the pressures, motivations, and values that drive their voice and their vote,” said Dritan Nesho, CEO of HarrisX, which conducted the poll. “It also defines how politicians speak to them.”….When we polled 2,178 U.S. adults in mid-April, we found 15% identified as “working class,” while another 15% said they’re lower middle class and just 5% categorized themselves as working poor. Some polls lump those together in different configurations — usually the working class and lower middle class, creating a group that includes not quite one-third of Americans. Gallup did that in May 2022 and said about one-third of Americans identify as working class.”

Collins and Bates write further, “Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute, is a Democrat who has recently been critical of his party over their treatment of the working class. He said Democrats are preoccupied with what he calls “cultural radicalism,” which has alienated some of the working class voters who once made up their base. This shift gathered steam under Trump, who was a top choice among 48% of working class voters — by far the highest number — when asked to select from a list of which politicians best represent their interests and views, in the Deseret News/HarrisX survey…. Teixeira said many people think Republicans and Trump just appeal to white working class voters, but he said he’s seeing a shift among Latino and Black working class voters as well….Their support for Trump isn’t so much about policy, but rather about his willingness to take on the “elites,” Teixeira said, and for voters who feel alienated, that message resonates….“I thought the failure to understand this, and to basically write off all the Trump voters as a bunch of reactionary racists … I thought was a big mistake, analytically, even politically. And I think nothing has really improved too much since then,” he said….For Democrats to recapture this voting group, they need to focus again on an economic message rather than on cultural issues, he said….His colleague at AEI, Karlyn Bowman, a distinguished senior fellow, echoed his thoughts. After reviewing results of the survey, she said she saw an “extraordinary” amount of pessimism among working class voters….“The economy is the No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 issue for most Americans right now, as it is for the working class, too,” she said….Most working class are not college educated, but more than 1 in 4 are, including Aubrey Mitchell, who got a bachelor’s degree in community health education, and urged Josh to earn his general associate’s degree (30% of the working class have completed some college but did not graduate) although college was never his long-term goal. It’s a good fallback, he said, so he’s glad he completed it, even if he doesn’t use it. The vast majority of the working class have high school diplomas or better, at 95%….Most work or are looking for work, though 22% of the survey’s working class have retired.”

In “Can Democrats Win Back the Working Class? Four ways they can at least help stop the bleeding” at Slow Boring,  Jared Abbott and Fred Deveaux write: “Democrats have begun to recognize that they have a working-class problem, but it remains unclear how to solve it. We ran an experiment to find out (you can find the full report “Trump’s Kryptonite” here)….Our results suggest that Democrats can reach working-class voters by running candidates from working-class backgrounds who center working-people in their campaign rhetoric, call out economic elites, focus on the need for more and better jobs, and distance themselves from the Democratic Party establishment….Although most commentaries on the Democrats’ working-class problem have focused on working-class white voters, the last several election cycles suggest that Democrats have a working-class problem tout court. For instance, the progressive data analytics firm Catalist found Trump’s vote share among working-class (non-college) voters of color jumped six percentage points between 2016 and 2020, with both Black and especially Latino voters shifting toward Trump. Similarly, a comprehensive precinct-level analysis of 2020 voting patterns in high-Latino districts found that support for Trump in 2020 surged even in precincts with the highest number of Latino immigrants. These developments all challenge the widely-held notion that the US’s emerging majority-minority population will save the Democratic Party….What’s more, Democrats’ woes with working-class voters extend far beyond the rural and small-town voters many pundits have placed at the center of this story. Indeed, recent analyses indicate that the party faces a “ticking time bomb” with urban working-class voters in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where both turnout and Democratic vote shares in 2020 were down relative to 2012….Our analysis of data from the Comparative Congressional Election Survey (CCES) and General Social Survey (GSS) survey shows similar trends. First, working-class disillusionment with the Democrats appears to have set in as early as the 1980s, with the percentage of working-class Americans (measured by occupation) who identified with the party falling from a high of around 65% in the 1970s to south of 40% by 2022. And since we find no comparable trend among middle/upper-class Americans—hose identification with the Democratic Party has fluctuated narrowly between the low and high 40s since the early 1980s—it seems this secular dealignment is a specifically working-class phenomenon….”

“So how can Democrats appeal more effectively to working-class voters?,” Abbott and Deveaux ask. “We asked 1,650 Americans to evaluate pairs of hypothetical Democratic candidates. Each candidate was randomly assigned demographic attributes, such as race, gender, and previous occupation, as well as policy positions and a rhetorical style. After comparing each pair, respondents reported which one they preferred. We limited our analysis to focus only on voters who do not describe themselves as “strong partisans,” and therefore are most likely to change their voting behavior from one year to the next and play a pivotal role in deciding elections….Our results indicate that Democratic candidates can do four things to appeal to working-class voters across the political spectrum.

1. Run working-class candidates. All else equal, working-class voters prefer candidates from non-elite, working-class occupations (middle school teachers, construction workers, nurses, and warehouse workers) over those from elite, upper-class occupations (corporate executives, lawyers, and doctors).

2. Focus on messages that champion the working class and critique economic elites. We found that working-class voters prefer candidates who say they will serve the interests of the working class and who place blame for the problems facing working Americans on the shoulders of economic elites. In results we do not show here, we find that this economic populist message is particularly effective among working-class respondents who work in manual jobs, a group that Democrats increasingly struggle to reach.

3. Run on a jobs-first program. Working-class voters viewed more favorably candidates who highlighted a progressive federal jobs guarantee rather than one of the moderate economic policies we included in the survey (a small tax increase on the rich, a $15 minimum wage, and a jobs training program through small businesses). And this result was not limited to working-class Democrats. Indeed, the only policy we tested that was viewed positively by working-class respondents across the political spectrum was the progressive federal jobs guarantee—though working-class Republicans were slightly more favorable toward candidates who ran on the moderate job training program. Candidates who centered jobs were also favored by a range of other key constituencies from whom Democrats need to maintain or improve support, including African Americans, recent swing voters, low-engagement voters, non-college voters, and rural voters. Unfortunately, however, in our analysis of 2022 Democratic television ads, we found that just 18% even mentioned jobs.

4. Take a critical stance towards both parties. Candidates who explicitly criticized the Democratic and Republican Parties for being out of touch with working- and middle-class Americans were viewed more favorably across the board compared to candidates who either said nothing or stressed that Democrats have delivered for working- and middle-class Americans (proud Democrat in the graphic below). Importantly, these results are not simply driven by voters who lean Republican, but also Independents and those who lean Democrat.”

In “If Democrats Win Back the House, They Will Have John Roberts to Thank,”New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall writes: “If Democrats take back control of the House in 2024 after having lost it in 2022, analysts may well look back to a Supreme Court decision announced last week, Allen v. Milligan, as crucial to the party’s victory. This is because the Milligan decision will quite possibly result in the replacement of as many as five majority white Republican districts with majority-minority Democratic districts, and that’s for starters….The court’s ruling in Milligan specifically requires Alabama to create a second House district in order to provide an opportunity for a Black candidate to win. The decision is an unexpected affirmation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a development that immediately scrambled calculations being made about key House races across the nation….David Wasserman, the senior House analyst for the Cook Political Report, announced on Twitter that “in the wake of the SCOTUS Alabama decision, we’re shifting five House ratings in Democrats’ direction. It’s very likely two formerly Solid R seats will end up in Solid D.”….Milligan, Wasserman continued, “could reverberate across the Deep South leading to the creation of new Black-majority, strongly Democratic seats in multiple states.”….While more districts in other states could be added, depending on the outcome of further litigation, the Cook Report changed the “solid R” ratings of two Alabama and two Louisiana districts to “tossup” and the tossup rating of a Democratic-held seat in North Carolina, to “Lean D.”…If Democrats can gain five seats, it will critically affect the balance of power in Washington.”

Edsall also quotes Harvard Law professor Nicholas Stephanopolis, who says: “First, it means that Section 2 remains fully operative as a bulwark against racial vote dilution; second, it signals to conservative lower courts that they need to rule in favor of plaintiffs on facts like those in Milligan; third, it takes off the table arguments that Section 2 must be narrowly construed to avoid constitutional problems; and fourth, if Section 2 is constitutional, so should be other laws targeting racial disparities….It’s near-certain that Alabama will have a new Black opportunity (and Democratic) district by 2024, and this is also likely in Georgia and Louisiana. There may now be successful Section 2 claims in Texas, too. Milligan further complicates the looming Republican partisan gerrymander in North Carolina. And Milligan weakens Florida’s defense for eliminating a Black opportunity district around Jacksonville, which hinges on race-conscious districting being unconstitutional. Put it all together and at least 2-3, and quite possibly more, congressional districts are likely to change hands because of Milligan.”

Edsall quotes another Harvard professor, Lawrence H. Tribe, who cautioned in an email to Edsall, “First, nobody should believe the hype that this June’s Milligan decision has definitively rescued the Voting Rights Act from the dustbin to which the Roberts Court has been busy relegating it ever since Shelby County v. Holder cut the preclearance heart out of the Act a decade ago on constitutional grounds” Edsall explains, “In practice, Tribe argued, Milligan “left the preclearance provision of Section 5 a dead letter and kept in place the crippling interpretation of Section 2 set forth in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.” But, Tribe continued, “Allen v. Milligan remains highly significant as an essential reminder that the court doesn’t exist in an isolation booth, unaffected by public reactions to its decisions that venture too far from the mainstream of legal and social thought.”….Roberts and Kavanaugh, in Tribe’s view, chose not to press the case against race-based redistricting in part because of “the controversy unleashed by the court in its shattering abortion ruling in Dobbs last June, coupled with other unrestrained shocks to the system delivered by the court in the landmark cases involving guns and climate change, and aggravated by the ethical stench swirling about the court as a result of improprieties.”….These developments, Tribe continued, “almost certainly had an impact, however subconscious, on the chief justice and on Justice Kavanaugh, who has increasingly sought to distance himself from the hard right.”….”Tribe warned that respite will be brief:

In a court that seems poised in the Harvard University and North Carolina University cases to interpret the Equal Protection Clause as a demand that government be blind to race, there remains a distinct danger that Section 2 will eventually be held flatly unconstitutional, a possibility that the Milligan ruling did not permanently foreclose and that several Justices pointedly underscored.

Even a cynic, Tribe wrote, “would have to concede that the court, and the country, dodged a deadly bullet in Milligan, something I view as worth celebrating. But that the gun remains loaded remains a cause for deep concern.”

If you are wondering how Trump’s legal meltdown is playing out with voters, Domenico Montanaro explains at nor.org: “There is a strange political divergence taking place that’s made possible by American information echo chambers….Republicans, whose main source of information comes from conservative media, are saying they believe Trump. But the opposite is true for the rest of the country, including the group of voters who largely decide elections – independents who only lean toward one party or the other….Swing voters view Trump as toxic, and Republican strategists and pollsters say he’s a main reason why the party has underperformed in the last three election cycles.That electability message hasn’t filtered down to the rest of the party though….”There’s this phenomenon that happens every time Trump is impeached or indicted, and I call it the ‘rally-round-Trump effect,’ where voters sort of share his grievance,” GOP pollster Sarah Longwell told NPR’s Morning Editionon Monday….Longwell is no Trump fan. But she hosts focus groups of Republican voters and is clear-eyed about Trump’s hold on the party. She told Morning Editionthat only two of the 50 voters she’s talked to over several months said another indictment would make them deviate from Trump. Nineteen said it would endear them more to him….In the limited polling since the indictment came out, that has been born out. A CBS/YouGov poll found that double the number of likely Republican primary voters said an indictment would change their view for the better (14%) than for the worse (7%). (Sixty-one percent said it wouldn’t change their view of him.)….The CBS poll found 80% of Republicans said Trump should still be able to be president even if he’s convicted….A minority of Republicans also said they believed it was a national security risk if Trump kept nuclear or military documents, but 80% of everyone else said it was serious. That just so clearly shows the fork in this political road….An ABC/Ipsos poll showed that the percentage of people saying this indictment is serious went up from 52% to 61%, as compared to the charges in New York stemming from hush-money payments Trump made to allegedly cover up affairs he was having….More than 6 in 10 independents said they think the charges were serious compared to slightly more than half after the New York indictment in April. And there was some movement among Republicans, too — 38% described these charges as serious compared to just 21% in April….But, importantly, there was no statistical change in how many thought Trump should or should not be charged. It’s nearly identical after the New York charges — half say he should be charged, a third or slightly more say he should not. And half also think the charges are politically motivated with independents split, which signals a big messaging fight ahead….”The question is, is how many more indictments are going to come,” Longwell asked, “and is it going to be a case where, because of all of Trump’s legal troubles, he’s the only person who ever gets talked about?”

At Axios, Alex Thompson has some tips re “Trump’s survive-the-unsurvivable plan,” which Dems may want to check out: “Trump has had a lot of practice surviving the unsurvivable. So his team has developed a playbook to repeat during bad news.

• Pre-release: Trump will preempt any damaging announcement by releasing new information himself beforehand to try to blunt the impact of coming revelations.
• Whataboutism: Trump will try to muddy the waters by pointing to any mistakes — real, exaggerated, or false — by his opponents.
• Martyrdom: He will tell his supporters that any allegations against him are part of a larger conspiracy against his cause to fight the establishment.
• Solidarity: Even before all the facts are known, Trump has his allies hit the airwaves to claim that he is innocent or his enemies are corrupt.
• Shamelessness: Trump never hides or acts embarrassed, even in the face of damning information.
• Flood the zone online: Trump’s team prepares large volumes of content ahead of time to pump out on social media.
• Raise big money: Never waste a chance to raise money — especially if the Justice Department indicts him for obstruction and mishandling classified materials.
• Go apocalyptic: “In the end, they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you — and I’m just standing in their way,” Trump said Saturday at a rally in Columbus, Ga., in his first appearance since the Florida indictment. He also said: “This is the final battle.”

The big picture: Trump is the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. He’s the only former president to be indicted on federal charges. And he expects to be indicted at least once more — this time as part of his efforts to overturn his election loss in 2020….Zoom in: Former and current Trump aides often don’t defend Trump’s conduct — but believe that politics are on his side in part because of his ability to frame himself as a martyr for his voters’ larger cause.”

From Dan Brodey’s Daily Beast profile of Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Republican Ted Cruz: “In an interview with The Daily Beast, Allred previewed all the themes his challenge will feature: Cruz’s objection to the 2020 election outcome after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, his opposition to legislation to prevent a default on the debt and to fund high-tech manufacturing, his coziness with far-right culture warriors, his zeal for the conservative media spotlight, and, yes, Cancun….The indelible image of Cruz returning to a storm-stricken Texas—where millions of his constituents were cold and without power in February 2021—from a family vacation in the Mexican resort city is, unsurprisingly, the apotheosis of Allred’s case against the incumbent. He calls it the “perfect encapsulation of how Ted Cruz sees himself as a public servant.”….Allred is also quick to mention he has won tough races before—he flipped a traditionally Republican seat in the Dallas suburbs in 2018….Allred, a Black man raised by a single mother who went from playing in the NFL to being a voting rights lawyer, is a polished communicator, said Rottinghaus, someone who “can deliver a really good message, is young and engaging, has a good story, and has bipartisan chops.”….In the 2024 election cycle, in which Democrats are defending their narrow Senate majority in daunting states like West Virginia, Texas actually represents the party’s best chance to flip a Republican-held seat, meaning the race will likely draw national attention…..In 2018, he defeated longtime incumbent Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) in a historically Republican suburban district by six points, one of the key data points of the Trump-era partisan political realignment. The people who voted for him that year, Allred said, “are no longer going to be voting for Ted Cruz.”….To underscore his broad appeal, the congressman is quick to note that he has been endorsed by both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and organized labor, traditionally two redoubts for the center-right and the center-left, respectively. “I’m not a generic Democrat,” Allred said. Brodey notes that Allred will likely have primary opposition. “Roland Gutierrez, a state senator who represents the gun violence-scarred community of Uvalde, is reportedly very likely to run against Cruz. Like O’Rourke, he has grabbed headlines for confronting Texas GOP leaders who have refused to pass gun reforms, and could capture enthusiasm among Democratic voters.”

In “The Rise of Independent Voters Is a Myth: A recent poll found that nearly half of Americans identify as independent. But they’re hiding the real truth about how they vote,” Alex Shepard writes at The New Republic: “America’s largest, fastest-growing political party isn’t led by Joe Biden or Donald Trump. It’s the Independent Party. At least, that was one of the biggest takeaways from a Gallup poll this spring. It found that 49 percent of Americans—roughly the same amount as the number of voters who identify as Democrats and Republicans combined—think of themselves as “independents.” (An identical poll a month later found slightly less eye-catching numbers.) That’s a huge jump from just 20 years ago, when less than a third of respondents identified that way….“The interesting thing about independents is that they do have affiliations to political parties,” said University of Michigan political scientist Yanna Krupnikov—who, with the University of Arizona’s Samara Klar, literally wrote the book on political independents, 2016’s Independent Politics: How American Disdain for Parties Leads to Political Inaction. “They typically have a preference, but it’s potentially different from the deep-seated attachment that a strong partisan might have. But a large portion of them do seem to prefer one party or the other.” Roughly three-quarters of independent voters are known as “leaners”—they typically turn out to vote for one party or the other. Most independents, in other words, aren’t so independent….Rather, “I think what this reflects is that most Americans have a pretty negative view of the party system in general and of what’s happening in our politics,” Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz told The New Republic. “There’s a reluctance to openly identify oneself as a partisan and to say, come right out and say, ‘I think of myself as a Republican or a Democrat.’”….more than 60 percent of independents who lean Republican or lean Democrat have “very” or “somewhat” cold opinions of the other party, according to a 2017 Pew Research poll….Regardless, the idea that these voters are a secret army of moderates waiting to be unlocked by a centrist party is likely a myth. Many do think the parties are too extreme; certainly most believe that they’re too disputatious. And yet they hardly represent a sizable “third party”: They’re not shopping around.”

On the other hand, Julia Manchester reports that “Democratic fears grow over third-party candidates” at The Hill, and writes: “The bipartisan group “No Labels” has been working toward building the foundation to launch a “unity ticket” to run as an option separate from Democrats or Republicans as polls show a rematch between Biden and former President Trump is likely. And Cornel West, a progressive activist, became the first relatively well-known third-party candidate to enter the race….The developments come as polling shows Americans souring on the prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch. A NewsNation/DDHQ poll released this week found 49 percent of respondents said it was somewhat or very likely they would consider voting for a third-party candidate in 2024 if Trump and Biden were the nominees….Meanwhile, an NBC News poll released last month found 70 percent of Americans said they did not want Biden to run for president next year, while 60 percent say they do not want Trump to run for president in 2024….“It’s almost universal,” said former Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who is involved with No Labels. “People are just saying ‘350 million Americans, can’t we have a different match?’”….While West’s chances of being elected president are slim, his candidacy, like past third-party bids, could impact the results of the election….Groups like Third Way and the Lincoln Project, a group critical of the state of the GOP under Trump, have come out strongly against the prospect of a third-party candidate. The groups have particularly taken aim at No Labels….“It is a guaranteed spoiler and the risk is all on the Democratic side,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way. “It’s notable that Democrats are concerned about No Label’s third-party bid and no Republican is concerned, at least no Republican who is a Trump partisan or would support another Republican nominee. All of that concern is on the Democratic side.”….“Democrats rely far more on moderate and Independent voters than Republicans in national elections,” he added….No Labels has maintained a third-party bid is viable, citing polling that shows voters do not want a Trump vs. Biden rematch. The group says its polling shows 59 percent of voters say they would consider a moderate, independent ticket in 2024 if Trump and Biden are the nominees. The group is on the ballot in Arizona, Alaska, Colorado and Oregon.”

It’s too early to assess the political damage to Trump resulting from his recent and pending indictment(s), and more importantly for Dems to define a new 2024 strategy. But the damage looks substantial enough for Dems to begin thinking about it.

In “How Trump’s new indictment could affect 2024,” WaPo’s Aaron Blake limns the damage to Trump, as revealed by previous opinion polls: “

What seems clear is that more Americans, Republicans included, view these charges as serious. And while another indictment might not be enough to sink Trump in a GOP primary, this one for now appears more problematic, especially for his general-election hopes.

….The first thing to note: As with previous polls, people are less concerned about the charges Trump faces in Manhattan. While 52 percent of Americans regard it as a “serious crime” to falsify business records to conceal hush money payments to an adult-film star — the lowest percentage of five issues tested — 65 percent say the same about taking highly classified documents from the White House and obstructing efforts to retrieve them….Among just Republicans, while 28 percent say the former is serious, 42 percent say the latter is.

Much also depends on how much people would regard a conviction as being disqualifying. And that’s where this poll is especially helpful.

The survey also asked whether people thought Trump should be allowed to serve as president if he’s convicted of a “serious crime.” Just 23 percent overall said he should be, while 62 percent said he shouldn’t be. Republicans were more evenly split, with 39 percent saying a serious crime would be disqualifying.

The overlap between these two questions — how many people view serious crimes as disqualifying and regard these particular things as serious crimes — is also crucial.

Blake goes on to cite a YouGov poll which “combined the data” and found:

Those numbers go up to 49 percent and 50 percent, respectively, in the classified documents case.

At FiveThirtyEight, Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux writes that “the GOP’s push to tighten abortion laws is generally at odds with public sentiment overall. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that in areas where abortion was prohibited in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, the share of people who think it should be easier to get an abortion rose from 31 percent in 2019 to 43 percent in 2023. There was a similar uptick in states where abortion was restricted or the law was being disputed in the courts. The poll also found that a majority of Americans (62 percent) think that states are making it too hard to get an abortion, including a substantial minority (39 percent) of Republicans. A majority (53 percent) of Republicans also think it should either be easier (20 percent) or about as difficult as it is now (33 percent) to get an abortion in their area, while less than half (44 percent) think it should be harder. And a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that Americans overall are much more likely to say that the Democratic Party represents their view on abortion (42 percent) compared to the Republican Party (26 percent)….None of this polling points to much of an appetite for more abortion restrictions, even among a solid chunk of Republicans. And it’s especially difficult for presidential candidates to find a position that both pleases anti-abortion advocates and isn’t broadly unpopular. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in April found that only 21 percent of Americans support a national ban on abortion without exceptions, and just over one-third (35 percent) are in favor of a national ban at six weeks’ gestation. The idea of banning abortion nationally — even at a later point in pregnancy, like 15 weeks — seems to be fairly politically toxic: A YouGov/Economist poll conducted last fall found that there was more support for establishing a national right to abortion (51 percent) than banning abortion at 15 weeks, while allowing states to enact stricter laws on their own (39 percent).”

In her article, “Moving Beyond the Good Ol’ Boys Club: Recent Trends in Women’s Representation in State Legislatures” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Carah Ong Whaley writes: “The percentage of women in state legislatures has increased in recent years. However, there is still a significant gender gap in most states as women have not reached parity in representation….The majority of women in state legislatures are Democrats. While more Republican women ran for office in 2022 than in previous years, that didn’t amount to closing the gender gap in representation….The percentage of women in state legislatures has increased more in Western and Northeastern states than in Midwestern and Southern states. This is likely due to a number of factors, including the political climate, the level of motivation and activism among women, and the availability of resources for women’s campaigns….Good politics and policy depend on diverse perspectives and lived experiences, but women remain underrepresented at all levels of government. As this analysis shows, the number of women in state legislatures is increasing, and this is a positive trend. However, as this analysis also demonstrates, progress is not a given and there are clearly states where more attention to closing the gender gap in representation is needed….For women to achieve parity in representation, there are structural challenges that states can address, including for example, by increasing salaries for legislators and providing stipends for childcare. There are also ways in which political parties and organizations can address the challenges women and other minoritized candidates face by expanding recruitment, encouragement, and training efforts, while increasing financial support for women to run for office. Openings and incumbency are also issues, and may require encouraging more women to challenge candidates from their own parties in primaries.”

In “As the Suburbs Go, So Goes America,” New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall writes, “Over the past half century, the percentage of Black Americans living in the nation’s suburbs has doubled, a shift that is changing the balance of political power in key regions of the country….“Since 1970, the share of Black individuals living in suburbs of large cities has risen from 16 to 36 percent,” Alexander W. Bartik and Evan Mast, economists at the University of Illinois and Notre Dame, write in their 2021 paper “Black Suburbanization: Causes and Consequences of a Transformation of American Cities.”…“This shift,” they point out, “is as large as the post-World War II wave of the Great Migration.”….In 1990, 33.9 percent of Black Americans in what are known as metropolitan statistical areas lived in the suburbs. By 2020, that grew to 51.2 percent, a 17.3-point shift over the same period; the share of Asian Americans in metropolitan statistical areas living in suburbs grew by 13.2 percentage points; and the share of Hispanics by 13.8 percentage points.” Commentators used to talk about “white flight” to describe the phenomenon of large numbers of white families moving from the cities to the suburbs and exurbs, usually implying out-migration driven by racism. But the Black exodus from the cities described by Edsall raises the possibility of something new. Call it “green flight” — families of all races simply wanting more of the natural world to enjoy, the forests, clean air and reduced traffic that you can still find in many rural communities.” There are political reverberations.

Edsall continues, “A study of the shifting politics of suburbia from the 1950s to the present, “Not Just White Soccer Moms: Voting in Suburbia in the 2016 and 2020 Elections,” by Ankit Rastogi and Michael Jones-Correa, both at the University of Pennsylvania, found that from the 1950s to the start of the 1990s,

Residing in racially homogeneous, middle-class enclaves, White suburban voters embraced a set of policy positions that perpetuated their racial and class position. Since the 1990s, however, the demographics of suburbs have been changing, with consequent political shifts.

As a result, by 2020, “suburban voters were more likely to back Biden, the Democratic candidate, than his Republican counterpart Trump.”…Why, the authors ask?

White suburban precincts showed greater support for Biden in 2020 than for Clinton in 2016. Our analysis indicates, however, that if all suburban voters had voted like white suburbanite precincts, Trump would have carried metropolitan suburbs in 2020.

So what saved the day for Biden? “Democrats carried metropolitan suburbs in 2020 because of suburban voters of color.” Edsall concludes, “America is undergoing a racial and ethnic upheaval that will profoundly shape election outcomes. On first glance, the trends would appear to favor Democrats, but there is no guarantee.”

Ronald Brownstein presents a case for “widening the pathways for legal immigration” at CNN Politics” and also writes: “Admitting more immigrants, many experts believe, is the most feasible way to expand America’s stagnating labor force after years of historically slow growth in the nation’s working-age population. And creating more opportunities for legal entry into the US – while maintaining strong penalties for illegal entry – may be the best long-term lever to reduce pressure on the border by encouraging more migrants to pursue legal means of entering the country and seeking work….With or without more legal immigration, experts agree, deteriorating economic and social conditions in multiple countries across Latin America guarantees difficulty in controlling the flow of migrants trying to cross the Southern border. But, to a degree that hasn’t been fully recognized, President Joe Biden and his administration are betting that creating more legal options will reduce the number of people looking to cross illegally and reduce pressure at the border, while also responding to the economy’s need for more workers. “That’s the theory of the case,” said Angela Kelley, chief policy adviser to the American Immigration Lawyers Association and former senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas….The Biden calculation is that more opportunity for legal entry creates more leverage for tougher enforcement. If potential migrants conclude they have no realistic chance to enter and work in America legally, the White House believes, they are less likely to be dissuaded by penalties under US law that can bar them from entry for years when they are caught trying to enter illegally. Migrants, after all, may not view such a prohibition on legal entry as much of a risk if there was virtually no chance of legal admission anyway. In the eyes of the administration, and like-minded immigration advocates, it takes a plausible carrot (the prospect of legal entry) to create an effective stick (with the entry ban of five years or more for illegal crossings that the administration announced when it ended the Trump administration’s pandemic-era Title 42 policy at the border.)”

Brownstein also notes, ““If you have legitimate consequences for unlawful entry combined … with easy to access legal pathways, these two things together reduce irregular migration,” said one administration official, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal policy deliberations. “But one without the other has proven to be [ineffective].”….By itself, a more robust system of legal immigration “won’t solve the current crisis,” said Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the US Naturalization and Immigration Service under President Bill Clinton. But such a system, she believes, can contribute to stabilizing the border – and enhancing the credibility of enforcement efforts….“If there are realistic ways of coming to the country – a range of them – it makes the enforcement and something like a five-year ban, much more salient” to migrants, said Meissner, now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a center-left think tank….Conservatives, meanwhile, remain dubious of any steps to increase legal immigration – even in the name of reducing illegal migration….The backdrop for this immigration debate is that the US is living through one of its longest sustained periods of sluggish population growth. In fact, from 2010 to 2020, the population grew more slowlythan in any ten-year span in US history except during the Great Depression, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Metro think tank….The slowdown has been especially acute in the youth and working-age population. The size of the US labor force (essentially the population 16 and older available to work) grew by almost three-fifths from 1960-1980 and rose again by more than a third from 1980-2000. But from 2000 to 2020 it increased by only around one-sixth. The labor force has been growing even more slowly since 2020.”

Further, Brownstein adds, “Using executive authority, Biden has done more to pave those legal pathways than generally recognized. Biden has doubled the number of migrants admitted under permanent employment visas by using his statutory authority to reallocate unused family-based visas to the employment category. He’s significantly expanded the number of temporary guest workers admitted for both agriculture and seasonal employment in businesses like fisheries and hotels, and targeted some of those extra visas to Latin American countries, including Guatemala and El Salvador, where difficult domestic conditions heighten pressure for illegal migration. Biden has also substantially increased the number of people designated for “Temporary Protected Status” that allows them to stay and work (or study) in the US because of unsafe conditions in their home country….Most ambitiously, Biden has used the federal government’s so-called “parole” authority to legally admit large numbers of migrants from countries facing acute crises. Presidents of both parties previously have used the parole authority to admit, for instance, Vietnamese immigrants after the fall of South Vietnam or Cubans after the communist takeover of the island. After first applying the parole authority to people from Afghanistan and Ukraine, the Biden administration subsequently announced it would admit up to 30,000 migrants a month from four countries in this hemisphere experiencing high levels of chaos: Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti and Cuba. Those using the program must be sponsored by someone legally present in the US and fly to America; they are then authorized to work for two years. (The administration is developing a similar parole system to speed entry for migrants from Haiti, Cuba and four Latin American countries who are eligible to reunite with family members already in the US.)….The administration and its allies point out that illegal border crossings by migrants from the four countries designated for parole have plummeted since the program went into effect. “The evidence is promising,” Kelley says, that the availability of parole “disrupts the smuggling operation” by encouraging more people instead to seek a legal pathway….Still, the parole power is limited as a tool, since it only authorizes those admitted under it to stay in the US for two years.”

Nicole Lafond shares some choice observations in her post, “Where Things Stand: Save This Clip For Next Time They Pretend They Don’t Wanna Cut Soc Security, Medicare” at Talking Points Memo.” Lafond reports that Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy is catching a lot of heat from his right flank, which is very disappointed that Biden protected Asocial Security and Medicare from cuts. As Lafond reports: “House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is seemingly trying to get a handful of far-right members of the Freedom Caucus to chill out and stop threatening to redo the speakership election. They’re not likely to successfully depose him, but no one is eager for a redo of the January spectacle as a few loud members seek to reassert their authority. And, so, in what is seemingly a half-hearted effort to throw them a bone, McCarthy went on Fox News and promised to create some vague “commission” that’ll review further cuts to next year’s budget….The speaker then took it a step further. Instead of just promising that “this isn’t the end” and proposing some sort of additional amorphous cuts to quell a hardliner uprising, McCarthy doubled down, raising the possibility that this next step commission could look into gutting Social Security and Medicare. Music, in theory, to the ears of a salivating Freedom Caucus….Here’s the full exchange quickly:

McCarthy: “We only got to look at 11 percent of the budget to find these cuts. We have to look at the entire budget. The Congress has done this before after World War II –“

Harris Faulkner: “Why didn’t you see the whole budget?”

McCarthy: “The president walled off all the others. The majority driver of the budget is mandatory spending. It’s Medicare, Social Security, interest on the debt.”

Faulkner: “And he wouldn’t let you see? Wow.”

….Broadly speaking, Republicans have been trying to hollow out both Medicare and Social Security for decades, only to reverse course when the public catches on and paint their fixation with gutting the programs as innocent efforts to reform entitlements. In most recent memory, this about face played out live on television….This latest round of the GOP’s Medicare/Social Security-gutting fake out came to a head during this year’s State Of The Union address, when President Biden rather skillfullycornered Republicans into agreeing not to push for cuts to either program mid-speech.” What hasn’t changed is that the GOP is still the party that wants to reduce earned benefits for senior voters. Democrats should remind voters of this reality at every opportunity.