I recently spoke with Angelina Parrillo of the The Boston Globe about the growing difference in how Republicans and Democrats view the field of higher education and the value of a college degree — a gap confirmed by a new poll by the Globe and Emerson College:
bostonglobe.com/2024/04/11/mag…

And we have a final cover! Look out for Matt Grossmann & David A. Hopkins's highly anticipated new book out Sept 2024 from Cambridge University Press - Politics Cambridge University Press

In the meantime, you can pre-order a copy here: cambridge.org/us/universityp…

Pour le Le Nouvel Obs, David A. Hopkins, professeur de sciences politiques au Boston College, analyse avec finesse les fractures géographiques de la guerre culturelle qui déchire l'Amérique. nouvelobs.com/monde/20240411…

Blurbs are in for my next book with David A. Hopkins, Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics. Thanks so much! Thomas Edsall Suzanne Mettler Amy Walter

Pre-order here:
cambridge.org/us/universityp…

Third-party/independent candidates basically *always* do better among younger voters than older voters. This was even true of George Wallace in 1968, who was running as a racial segregationist.

There's no reason to make much of Nikki Haley's overperformance in DeKalb and Fulton counties. Some early/mail-in votes would've been cast before she dropped out, plus Georgia allows Dems to vote in the GOP primary. Beware for the search for a story on an uneventful evening.

Not only is this excellent piece by Kristin Lunz Trujillo a persuasive plea for nuance and fair-minded use of evidence in scholarship, it also perceptively notes how liberal intellectuals' own behavior can exacerbate the cultural divisions they claim to lament:
newsweek.com/white-rural-ra…

Boston College basketball team manager, Matt Malley, refuses to let anything hold him back from his dream cbsnews.com/boston/news/bz… via WBZ | CBS News Boston

Comparing yesterday's Republican primary vote in VT to the general election results in 2020 (blue is Biden) indicates how Haley won here in an open primary. #Haley #Vtpoli #Vtprimary

It's hard to say anything definitive about the CA senate race before votes come in from LA County, but if Porter is only leading Garvey by 4 points in Marin and trailing him by 9 in Napa, it's pretty hard to imagine her beating him out for 2nd place statewide (behind Schiff).

Sinema really was a true maverick/oddball -- a type that used to be much more common in Congress but is now vanishing. Most high-level politicians' behavior is easily explainable by identifying their immediate strategic incentives, but she was a rare and fascinating exception.

Also, the Dem turnout being way up from 2012 doesn't mean anything. MI passed a law in the interim that allowed voters to automatically get sent mail ballots for all elections if they wanted; many voted this year who wouldn't have bothered before.
x.com/DaveAHopkins/s…

Any interpretation of the MI results so far that isn't 'big wins for both Trump and Biden' is straining too hard to make drama out of these numbers

My next book with David A. Hopkins, Polarized by Degrees
How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics, is now available for pre-order:
cambridge.org/us/academic/su…

Good piece but unfair to Johnson when it suggests he has no good strategy to solve problems for which no good strategy may exist (like appropriations). And I doubt the bloc that dumped McCarthy feels remorse; a weak/inexperienced speaker isn't bad for them
politico.com/news/2024/02/1…

Beware overinterpretation of special election results...

Senate GOP IS split on Ukraine, but notable that of the 11 Republican senators who got to Washington after Trump became President, only one voted for the foreign bill and that was Romney, who of course is a special case and on his way out the door. politico.com/news/2024/02/1…

Haley losing the NV primary to “none of the above” is being treated as uniquely humiliating, but it’s more accurate to view the “none” vote as basically a vote for Trump by another name. Still a bad loss, but not an especially revealing one given weirdness of NV primary this year

Most of the difference in effectiveness between the Pelosi and McCarthy/Johnson speakerships reflects asymmetries in the parties, not the individuals. But in this case it's just not clear to me why a speaker would bring up an impeachment resolution without nailing down the votes.