Latest news with #InstituteofPolitics
6 days ago
- Politics
Wes Moore, Tim Walz urge for a fiercer Democratic party at famed Jim Clyburn Fish Fry
Democratic governors Tim Walz and Wes Moore are fired up - but not solely to eat South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn's so-called "world famous" breaded fish. They're fired up to refocus their party, and on Friday evening, both pitched their theory of how to build up coalitions and win back the Americans they've lost: emphasize the political gravity of the moment forcefully and frequently, and don't wait until the midterms to talk to as many constituencies as possible. "Each and every one of us, we're not going to have someone come save us. But who wants that? We can save ourselves. We can get out there. We can make a difference," said Minnesota Gov. Walz during brief remarks on stage to a few hundred Democrats in Columbia, South Carolina. "We need to change the attitude, compete in every district, compete for every school board seat, and come out to this damn fish fry with the attitude: 'we're going to fill up on some fish, and then we are going to beat the hell out of these dictators.'" Moore, the first Black governor of Maryland, in his remarks stressed that the "baton is in our hands." "We are not going to drop it. We are going to run through the tape, and we are going to win because we understand what's at stake," said Moore He continued the refrain, as a rallying cry of sorts: "Send a message the entire country is going to hear. This is our time. This is our moment. We will not shirk, we will not flinch, we will not blink. We will win, just as those who came before us did." Yet, neither of them said that they should be the leader of the party in 2028. Both governors have denied any plans of seeking the presidential nomination, which the pair reiterated during a gaggle with reporters before their on-stage remarks Friday. During that gaggle, Clyburn said he saw both Walz and Moore as "great leaders" but said they have to decide their own plans. Walz has said he has no plans for a White House run and is still mulling whether he will run for gubernatorial reelection. When pressed at an appearance at Harvard's Institute of Politics, Walz said he wasn't sure if the party's eventual candidate is clear just yet. "I think it's a super talented bench," Walz said. "Do I think the person's out there? No, I'm not sure they're out there yet." Moore has rejected the notion more fiercely, telling ABC's "The View" plainly, "I am not running." He doubled down in the reporter gaggle Friday, "Anyone who is talking about 2028 is not taking 2025 very seriously," Moore told reporters. "The fight is 2025. Right now." Moore also gave a keynote address at the state's key fundraiser, the Blue Palmetto Dinner, just before his Fish Fry appearance, where, according to a circulated copy ahead of his remarks, he said the party must be delivering "an alternative" to Trump at this moment. "I want to be clear: We can – and we must – condemn Donald Trump's reckless actions. But we would also be foolish not to learn from his impatience. Now is the time for us to be impatient too. Let's not just talk about an alternative. Let's not just study an alternative. Let's deliver an alternative," Moore's prepared remarks said. Even still, it's no secret that Clyburn's fish fry has often been fertile waters for would-be Democratic rising stars and Pennsylvania Ave. hopefuls to mix and mingle among powerful party operatives, donors, and key South Carolina early state voters in one night. And while not as much of a crazed scene as the 2019 event, where a menagerie of Dem candidates vied for stage-time as the partiers shimmied shoulder to shoulder, Friday night's event was still high-energy. Walz will be speaking to Palmetto State Democrats once again Saturday morning. But that doesn't end the Minnesota governor's campaign travel. After his address on Saturday, he's quickly off to California to speak at its Democratic Party's event. The famous fish fete tees off a weekend of fundraising and party business as the South Carolina Democratic Party convenes for their state convention. Friday night's event also comes as South Carolina's future placement within the party's early voting calendar is in flux. Last cycle, due to changes made by the Democratic National Committee, South Carolina replaced historically first Iowa as the initial contest. However, Democrats must set a new calendar for 2028. Which order the state comes in is less important to Clyburn, he said. "I never ask for anything more than to keep us in the pre-primary window," said Clyburn. "Whether that be one, two, three, or four, I don't care."
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
There are two Gen Zs
We can confidently say that Gen Z got a lot more Republican over the last couple of years, thanks to a swarm of new, first-time young voters — specifically men of all races. Pre-election polling captured this phenomenon, voter registration trends tracked it, and post-election exit polls suggest ballots reflected it. Add to this a recent report from the Democratic firm Catalist, which has produced some of the most definitive analyses of the 2024 election, and you start to get a pretty solid sense that young voters have shifted hard toward the Republican Party. Still, that might elide some nuance within Gen Z. The data we have from the last election suggests, broadly, at least two types of young voters: 'Old Gen Z' — more Democratic, more progressive — and 'Young Gen Z' — more Trump-curious and more skeptical of the status quo. That internal split, roughly between those aged 18 to 24 in the latter camp and 25 to 29 in the former, hasn't dissipated post-election; it is still showing up in polling and surveys. No cohort is monolithic, but a combination of factors — the pandemic, the rise of smartphones and newer social media, inflation, Trump — seems to be driving a wedge within Gen Z. The upshot is that there appear to be two Gen Zs. And that divide within the generation certainly complicates the long-held belief that younger voters are generally more progressive than older ones — and that Democrats thus have a natural edge with younger generations. About a year ago, the Harvard Youth Poll, a public opinion project from that university's Institute of Politics that has been recording young voters' sentiments for more than a decade, tracked a major difference in the way voters under the age of 30 were feeling about Joe Biden and Donald Trump. While Biden held a lead of 14 percentage points among adults aged 25 to 29, his lead among 18- to 24-year-olds was 10 points smaller. Support for Trump was higher among the younger part of this cohort by 5 percentage points in the March 2024 poll. That dynamic remained true even after the Democrats switched to Kamala Harris as their standard-bearer. In the same poll conducted in September, the younger half of Gen Z voters continued to lag in its Democratic support compared to the older half. Now, more than four months into the Trump presidency, this dynamic — of Young Gen Z being more friendly to Republicans than Old Gen Z — continues to show up in the latest Harvard IOP poll. For example, the March 2025 survey found that Young Gen Z holds more favorable views of Republicans in Congress than Old Gen Z; while the older cohort disapproves of the GOP by a 35-point margin, the margin for the younger cohort is 28 points. Similarly, the older cohort disapproves of Trump's job performance more sharply than the younger cohort — a 7-point gap on the margins. The same survey found Trump's favorability is 5 points better with Young Gen Z than with Old Gen Z. And while both groups tend to be unaffiliated with either party, a slightly larger share of Young Gen Z, 26 percent to 23 percent for Old Gen Z, identifies with the GOP. Older Gen Z hasn't seen any slippage in its wariness of Republicans. Across all three of those Harvard polls, the share who identify with the Republican Party has remained essentially unchanged. The only major difference in the spring poll is a significant shift away from Democrats toward the 'independent' label. Old Gen Z's views of Republicans in Congress have gotten more positive — 63 percent of them disapprove this spring, compared to 76 percent of them last year. That said, these older Gen Z voters' views of Trump have only dropped since the fall. Harvard's poll isn't the only one picking up this split in preferences. Yale University's youth poll from April has tracked similar divisions in political identification and preferences, while other non-political polling from the Pew Research Center has tracked internal differences within Gen Z as well. In terms of ideology, the polling is noisier, but shows signs of a split as well. Harvard's pre-election polls did track higher 'conservative' identification rates among under-25s than over-25s. Across all three 2024 and 2025 Harvard polls, conservative identification is essentially unchanged across both groups. Regardless of how each subgroup self-identifies, however, other polling suggests that the youngest Zoomers may still hold more conservative views than the oldest Zoomers. According to the spring Yale Youth Poll, younger Gen Z men and women tend to have more Republican-coded opinions than their older Gen Z peers on a range of policy issues. They tend to view Trump more favorably, side with the Republican position on some policies, like immigration, trans women in college sports, and Ukraine, by higher margins, and are more likely to consider casting a vote for a generic Republican candidate than older Gen Z. Younger Gen Z is also the segment of Americans where religiosity seems to be holding steady, if not outright increasing. As I've reported before, young Gen Z men are holding on or returning to organized religion in rates high enough to slow down a decades-long trend toward religious dissociation in America. They are outpacing older Gen Z and younger millennial men in identifying with a religion, per the Pew Research Center's latest Religious Landscape Study. And in particular, among all Gen Z born between 2000 and 2006, a higher share, 51 percent, identify as Christian than they did in 2023, when 45 percent said so. Increased religiosity isn't necessarily direct evidence of more conservative thought or Republican affiliation, but there is a correlation between Republican partisan identification and respondents saying that the role of religion is important to them or that they identify with a religion at all. In other words, more religious Americans tend to be more Republican, or more conservative. Should these trends hold, they will pose a challenge for both major political parties. The idea of a rising Democratic electorate — that younger, diverse, and more progressive generations of voters becoming eligible to vote could deliver consistent victories for Democratic and liberal candidates — looks increasingly tenuous, not least after the 2024 elections. The polling since suggests the pro-GOP shift among younger Gen Z-ers may not be a blip. But Republicans will have work to do to sustain these gains and to have them work in their party's favor during election season. That Young Gen Z showed up for the GOP in 2024 doesn't guarantee that they will do so again in next year's midterms, or the next presidential election. And a lot is at stake. Gen Z will become the largest part of the electorate in 2030, and will have the power to sway elections, if Democrats and Republicans can keep them engaged. For now, the data show there may be something durable in the split that 2024 polling captured: The newest cohort of young voters, who couldn't vote in previous elections, was significantly more Republican than the oldest young voters. In 2020, Trump got about 31 percent of their vote. In 2024, he got 43 percent of their support. And the 2024 Catalist report suggests that the shift was driven by the emergence of a previously disengaged, male, and racially diverse youth electorate, made up predominantly of newly eligible Young Gen Z voters. Young Black and Latino men in this cohort shifted their votes to Trump, and were a significant chunk of new voters. Was this shift unique to Trump and his campaign? Perhaps. But what data we do have suggests there is an underlying curiosity or openness toward Republicans among the youngest cohort of Gen Z — one strong enough to cleave this generation in two.
Politico
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Politico
The one idea Americans can agree on this summer
HAVE A GREAT SUMMER — With Memorial Day weekend marking the unofficial start of summer, Americans are starting to embark on their travel plans. Over half of Americans — 55 percent — say they plan to take at least two nights away from home on a vacation this summer, according to a new survey from the Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. But as America has become more politically and culturally polarized, Mileah Kromer, the director of the IoP at UMBC, told POLITICO Nightly that she expected the survey would reveal different vacation preferences for Republicans and Democrats. In fact, the opposite was the case. The study showed few gaps between each party on questions of the types of travel they prefer, across beach trips, road trips, romantic getaways or family-friendly vacations. The main notable difference was travel to a city; 39 percent of Democrats said they are considering visiting an urban place this summer, compared to just 16 percent of Republicans. When diving into details, differences may arise: There are some specific beach destinations, for example, that might be more popular among Republicans or Democrats. (Palm Beach vs. Rehoboth Beach, for example.) But even the fact that there's generally very little difference in preference for one type of vacation over another was a surprise to Kromer, especially as members of each party increasingly divide over everything else: what television shows or movies to watch, what newspapers to read, where to shop for groceries. It could be as simple as this: Everyone likes getting some time off from work. The results of the survey, though, also point to the possibility that many American cultural differences are constructed out of thin air rather than preordained based on where someone grew up or their political affiliation. To better understand the study and what it tells us about America today, Nightly spoke with Kromer right as summer begins. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What was the most surprising part of the poll results? I've long been fascinated by these big partisan differences over seemingly non-political things, like baby name preference, where you shop, what car you buy. And so that's the reason we did this poll — I wondered if attitudes towards summer vacation are as pronounced. What stood out to me was that in the midst of all the polarity in these seemingly non-political areas, you really don't see it too much here. This is one thing that Americans share: their attitude towards summer vacation. Frankly, I was expecting to see some bigger partisan division, because it seems like it's everywhere these days. Where did you expect that partisan division to manifest itself? I noticed a fairly stark division in interest in urban vacation results, with Democrats much more likely to vacation in cities than Republicans. Certainly, urban tourism wasn't surprising at all. But I expected there to be some greater division among questions like where Democrats and Republicans plan to take a vacation, just because there are so many lifestyle choices that are so heavily polarized. Everyone still wants to go to the beach. What our survey can't tell you is some of the more granular questions. So, every beach vacation is not the same. The funniest or most politically pertinent point there is that Rehoboth Beach is not the same as Palm Beach, where Mar-a-Lago is. How much have decisions that we've considered non-political for a long time become imbued with politics more generally? The first book that I read on this that really opened my eyes to this phenomenon was The Big Sort by Bill Bishop [which was published in 2008]. Bishop talks about how people are clustering in like-minded communities, and that the more you put yourself in a partisan silo, everyone around you begins to like the same things that you like. It really intensifies when you're doing that with geographic location. So, with neighborhoods, even at the county level, there's fewer and fewer of what we'd consider swing counties. And when people don't spend time around folks with a diversity of opinions, they start to get a huge confirmation bias. People are now not only self-selecting into where they live, they're also self-selecting what media they consume and what they buy. That leads to an increase in specialized products directed at one group or another. In the case of vacations, then, why has this behavior stayed similar when everything else has changed? I'm thinking about that myself. The simplistic answer is everyone likes some time off. If we think about the flow of American culture on a calendar, every summer, school ends. When you have this break, a lot of people really relish the opportunity to take even a couple of days off, away from work, away from the stresses of life, to be with family and friends. I actually think it's sort of nice that there's some agreement. There's always these funny pieces that are something like: 'How to talk to your uncle or your aunt who you disagree with politically at your Thanksgiving dinner.' Here's something that you can talk about — vacation. If you ever want to have a non-political conversation with someone, maybe someone who you know you don't share any political views with, talk about vacation. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@ Or contact tonight's author at cmchugh@ or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh. What'd I Miss? — Judge blocks Trump administration's attempt to crush Harvard's foreign student enrollment: A federal judge barred the Trump administration today from rescinding Harvard University's ability to enroll foreign students, granting the school's emergency request to stave off 'immediate and irreparable injury.' U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs granted Harvard's requested restraining order just hours after the university sued the Department of Homeland Security, accusing the administration of unconstitutional retaliation for refusing to capitulate to President Donald Trump's demands. — Justice Department agrees to end Biden-era felony case against Boeing: The Justice Department announced an agreement today to end its felony case against Boeing for the plane-maker's role in two passenger jet crashes that killed a total of 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia — less than a year after the company agreed to plead guilty as part of a deal with the Biden administration. In return, Boeing must pay over $1.1 billion in fines, safety improvements and compensation for families of the people who died in the crashes in October 2018 and March 2019. Those disasters, involving Boeing's 737 MAX 8 jet, kicked off years of still-unresolved questions from lawmakers and safety experts about the federal government's oversight of the giant manufacturer and defense contractor. — Trump turns the screws on big companies amid tariff fight: President Donald Trump has publicly targeted companies which have expressed concerns surrounding the administration's tariff plan in recent days, threatening major brands including Apple and Walmart. The latest target of his ire was iPhone manufacturer Apple, which Trump threatened with a company-specific tariff in a Truth Social post this morning. — Trump approves Nippon purchase of US Steel: President Donald Trump said today he approved a deal for Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel, reversing a position he took during the presidential campaign after the Japanese manufacturer agreed to pour more investment into the United States. 'This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel, which will create at least 70,000 jobs and add $14 Billion Dollars to the U.S. Economy,' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. 'The bulk of the investment will occur in the next 14 months.' AROUND THE WORLD LANGUAGE WARS — The rejection of Catalan as an official language in Brussels stands to trigger a political crisis in Madrid. In exchange for key support needed to form a new minority government in 2023, Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez entered into an elaborate deal with Catalan separatist lawmakers in which he committed to getting Catalan, Basque and Galician recognized as official languages of the EU. The move requires unanimous backing of the bloc's 27 member countries, and Spanish officials spent the past two years lobbying European capitals for support. Next week, Spain intends to bring the issue to a vote in the General Affairs Council, the body that prepares periodic meetings of the bloc's leaders in Brussels. But documents summarizing this week's meeting of the bloc's ambassadors, seen by POLITICO, indicate serious doubts regarding Madrid's bid. HEIRS NOT WELCOME HERE — Belgium's heir to the throne could be forced to leave Harvard University after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a ban on foreign students at the prestigious institution. Princess Elisabeth, who will be the next queen of Belgium, is enrolled in a two-year master's degree in public policy at Harvard, one of the world's most elite universities. But the Trump administration revoked Harvard's ability to enroll international students on Thursday, accusing the university of promoting violence and antisemitism and failing to comply with a request to hand over foreign students' information that could lead to their deportation. The 23-year-old princess, who is the eldest child of Belgium's King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, has completed the first year of grad school but will not finish for another year. She graduated from the U.K.'s Oxford University last year. She's first in line to inherit the throne, after Belgium's constitution was changed in 1991 to abolish male-only succession. Nightly Number RADAR SWEEP PICS AND PRAYERS — Since the pandemic, India's religious sites have experienced a surge in popularity. The country's Hindu temples attract hundreds of thousands of visitors every day, and experts see no signs of it slowing down. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pushed for India to become a more openly Hindu nation since gaining power in 2014, and social media influencers have helped his cause, marketing spiritual spaces around the country as 'eminently Instagrammable', writes Satviki Sanjay for Bloomberg. Parting Image Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - When it comes to vacations, Democrats and Republicans think remarkably alike
Democrats and Republicans don't just disagree on policy — they increasingly diverge in how they live their daily lives. From the places they eat and the cars they drive to the television networks they watch and even the names they give their children, lifestyle choices are often split along partisan lines. These differences reflect a broader and more troubling trend: political polarization is shaping not just the outcomes of our elections, but the fabric of American culture. With the unofficial start of summer upon us, it is worth asking: Has polarization also seeped into something as apolitical as summer vacation? To find out, the Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where we serve as director and associate director, surveyed 1,123 American adults in early May using the AmeriSpeak Panel. For starters, partisans largely agree on a basic vacation question: how many consecutive days off work count as a 'real' vacation? Nearly half (47 percent) say it takes six or more consecutive days off work. About a third say four to five days is enough, and 12 percent say even one to three days qualifies. More than half of Americans (55 percent) plan to take a vacation this summer, defined in the survey as at least two nights away from home. There is a modest partisan gap: 61 percent of Republicans compared to 54 percent of Democrats say they plan to travel. But when it comes to how they plan to spend that time off, Democrats and Republicans are remarkably similar. Equal shares of both groups are planning beach trips or road trips, the two most popular vacation types in our survey. Romantic getaways and family-friendly excursions show no meaningful partisan divide either. Of course, the survey doesn't capture specific destinations — a beach vacation might mean Palm Beach for some, while Rehoboth is for others, i.e., same category, but they have very different vibes. One area where political preferences do seem to matter is urban tourism. Democrats are more than twice as likely as Republicans to say they plan to visit a city and explore its attractions. Democrats are also slightly more likely than Republicans to choose vacations focused on outdoor recreation, like hiking or camping. What about the 45 percent of Americans not planning a summer getaway? Democrats and Republicans give similar reasons: cost, work obligations, family responsibilities, or a preference for traveling at other times of year. One notable difference is that Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to say they 'don't like to take vacations.' Getting there matters, too, and most Americans feel safest behind the wheel. About 80 percent say they feel 'mostly' or 'completely' safe driving a personal vehicle, more than 20 points higher than the perceived safety of planes, trains or buses. There are no major partisan differences in how Americans view car, train or bus travel. But air travel tells a different story. Fifty-seven percent of Americans say flying is mostly or completely safe. That includes 64 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of Democrats. This gap persists even after controlling for demographics (race, gender, income and education) and geographic region. What explains the difference? Americans tend to trust the government more when their own party controls the presidency. That dynamic appears to be at work here. Republicans express more confidence in the current administration and its Cabinet officials, whereas Democrats are more skeptical. That skepticism appears to extend to how safe it feels to board a plane. To be sure, recent tragedies and problems, like the fatal mid-air collision near Reagan Washington National Airport and the ongoing air traffic control issues at Newark Liberty International Airport, further exacerbate the issue. The heavily partisan messaging among elites and Americans' growing preference for media that reinforces their views rather than challenges them, over who is to blame for these problems, almost certainly contributes to the partisan divergence in safety perceptions. We were curious to know whether polarization had turned summer vacation into another partisan affair. The good news is that, despite a few differences, Democrats and Republicans still have common ground on the seasonal respite from the pressures of work and life. But the societal and political problems associated with lifestyle sorting are nonetheless persistent and very real. And when our political identities become indistinguishable from our lifestyle preferences, the opportunities for meaningful interaction across the aisle shrink. That deepens cultural and affective polarization, reinforcing the divide that defines American politics today. And let's face it: a partisan silo is a terrible vacation destination. Mileah Kromer is an associate professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the director of the UMBC Institute of Politics, which conducts the UMBC Poll. She is the author of 'Blue State Republican: How Larry Hogan Won Where Republicans Lose and Lessons for a Future GOP.' Ian Anson is an associate professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the associate director of the UMBC Institute of Politics. He is the author of 'Following the Ticker: The Political Origins and Consequences of Stock Market Perceptions.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
When it comes to vacations, Democrats and Republicans think remarkably alike
Democrats and Republicans don't just disagree on policy — they increasingly diverge in how they live their daily lives. From the places they eat and the cars they drive to the television networks they watch and even the names they give their children, lifestyle choices are often split along partisan lines. These differences reflect a broader and more troubling trend: political polarization is shaping not just the outcomes of our elections, but the fabric of American culture. With the unofficial start of summer upon us, it is worth asking: Has polarization also seeped into something as apolitical as summer vacation? To find out, the Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where we serve as director and associate director, surveyed 1,123 American adults in early May using the AmeriSpeak Panel. For starters, partisans largely agree on a basic vacation question: how many consecutive days off work count as a 'real' vacation? Nearly half (47 percent) say it takes six or more consecutive days off work. About a third say four to five days is enough, and 12 percent say even one to three days qualifies. More than half of Americans (55 percent) plan to take a vacation this summer, defined in the survey as at least two nights away from home. There is a modest partisan gap: 61 percent of Republicans compared to 54 percent of Democrats say they plan to travel. But when it comes to how they plan to spend that time off, Democrats and Republicans are remarkably similar. Equal shares of both groups are planning beach trips or road trips, the two most popular vacation types in our survey. Romantic getaways and family-friendly excursions show no meaningful partisan divide either. Of course, the survey doesn't capture specific destinations — a beach vacation might mean Palm Beach for some, while Rehoboth is for others, i.e., same category, but they have very different vibes. One area where political preferences do seem to matter is urban tourism. Democrats are more than twice as likely as Republicans to say they plan to visit a city and explore its attractions. Democrats are also slightly more likely than Republicans to choose vacations focused on outdoor recreation, like hiking or camping. What about the 45 percent of Americans not planning a summer getaway? Democrats and Republicans give similar reasons: cost, work obligations, family responsibilities, or a preference for traveling at other times of year. One notable difference is that Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to say they 'don't like to take vacations.' Getting there matters, too, and most Americans feel safest behind the wheel. About 80 percent say they feel 'mostly' or 'completely' safe driving a personal vehicle, more than 20 points higher than the perceived safety of planes, trains or buses. There are no major partisan differences in how Americans view car, train or bus travel. But air travel tells a different story. Fifty-seven percent of Americans say flying is mostly or completely safe. That includes 64 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of Democrats. This gap persists even after controlling for demographics (race, gender, income and education) and geographic region. What explains the difference? Americans tend to trust the government more when their own party controls the presidency. That dynamic appears to be at work here. Republicans express more confidence in the current administration and its Cabinet officials, whereas Democrats are more skeptical. That skepticism appears to extend to how safe it feels to board a plane. To be sure, recent tragedies and problems, like the fatal mid-air collision near Reagan Washington National Airport and the ongoing air traffic control issues at Newark Liberty International Airport, further exacerbate the issue. The heavily partisan messaging among elites and Americans' growing preference for media that reinforces their views rather than challenges them, over who is to blame for these problems, almost certainly contributes to the partisan divergence in safety perceptions. We were curious to know whether polarization had turned summer vacation into another partisan affair. The good news is that, despite a few differences, Democrats and Republicans still have common ground on the seasonal respite from the pressures of work and life. But the societal and political problems associated with lifestyle sorting are nonetheless persistent and very real. And when our political identities become indistinguishable from our lifestyle preferences, the opportunities for meaningful interaction across the aisle shrink. That deepens cultural and affective polarization, reinforcing the divide that defines American politics today. And let's face it: a partisan silo is a terrible vacation destination. Mileah Kromer is an associate professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the director of the UMBC Institute of Politics, which conducts the UMBC Poll. She is the author of 'Blue State Republican: How Larry Hogan Won Where Republicans Lose and Lessons for a Future GOP.' Ian Anson is an associate professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the associate director of the UMBC Institute of Politics. He is the author of 'Following the Ticker: The Political Origins and Consequences of Stock Market Perceptions.'
