tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/gop-13335/articlesGOP – The Conversation2024-03-12T12:30:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254342024-03-12T12:30:55Z2024-03-12T12:30:55ZYes, sexism among Republican voters helped sink Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580810/original/file-20240309-28-5iqh5e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C12%2C8194%2C5475&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump supporters drive by a rally for Nikki Haley on Feb.1, 2024, in Columbia, S.C. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/flag-festooned-truck-in-support-of-former-president-donald-news-photo/1978923483?adppopup=true">Brandon Bell/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following multiple defeats in the Republican presidential primary, including in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/25/politics/nikki-haley-south-carolina-loss/index.html">her home state</a> of South Carolina, Nikki Haley <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/us/politics/haley-out-speech-transcript.html">suspended her bid</a> for the Republican presidential nomination on March 6, 2024.</p>
<p>Barring unforeseen events, Donald Trump will be the GOP candidate in November’s election.</p>
<p>Haley’s failure to pose a more serious challenge to Trump may be puzzling to some. After all, she was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/14/nikki-haley-2024-bio-what-you-need-to-know-00082742">a formidable candidate with notable political experience</a> in both federal and state government. She had outlasted prominent Republican officials, including <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ron-desantis-250c8ed4b49843350e258f0c2754c8ba">Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis</a>, former <a href="https://apnews.com/article/christie-presidential-race-5e974cfa407d39af878f066a71af35ad">New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/tim-scott-drops-out-2024-race-b9cc8fbeba57a123789d8d0484164e38#:%7E:text=COLUMBIA%2C%20S.C.%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94,in%20Iowa's%20leadoff%20GOP%20caucuses.">South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott</a>, in the GOP primary.</p>
<p>And Trump has serious political liabilities. Although he is wildly popular among Republican primary voters, Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/us/politics/donald-trump-primary-wins.html">support is much weaker among likely general election voters</a>. Trump’s unpopularity served as <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/11/09/nation/vote-counting-drags-signs-trumpisms-drag-red-wave/">a drag on Republicans’ performance</a> in the 2018 midterm elections, likely cost him a winnable presidential election in 2020 and contributed to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/trump-candidates-underperform-2022/">Republicans’ underperformance in the 2022 midterms</a>.</p>
<p>He also faces indictments on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/trump-charges-jan-6-classified-documents/">91 state and federal charges</a> ranging from plotting to overturn the 2020 election to withholding classified documents in his home in Florida. And observers, <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5107004/haley-targets-biden-trumps-age-vows-stay-race">including Haley</a>, have raised serious questions about his age, physical fitness and mental acuity.</p>
<p>Given her strengths and Trump’s vulnerabilities, why did Haley’s primary campaign fall flat? Of course, part of the reason is Trump’s unique appeal with Republican primary voters. Over the past eight years, Trump has forged a distinctive bond with his voters that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/16/politics/trump-supporters-indictments-mug-shot/index">leads them to overlook</a> his significant political weaknesses. </p>
<p>But sexism is also an important part of the explanation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580811/original/file-20240309-28-wu4gfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three people standing on a stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580811/original/file-20240309-28-wu4gfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580811/original/file-20240309-28-wu4gfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580811/original/file-20240309-28-wu4gfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580811/original/file-20240309-28-wu4gfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580811/original/file-20240309-28-wu4gfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580811/original/file-20240309-28-wu4gfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580811/original/file-20240309-28-wu4gfm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nikki Haley, left, outlasted many strong GOP primary candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidates-former-u-n-ambassador-news-photo/1705066202?adppopup=true">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Trump’s history of sexism</h2>
<p>Back in 2016, Trump frequently <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/10/23/498878356/sexism-is-out-in-the-open-in-the-2016-campaign-that-may-have-been-inevitable">made sexist remarks</a> directed at Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. He called her a “nasty woman,” said she does not have the “presidential look” and contended that Clinton was “playing the woman card.” </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/polq.12737">Research shows</a> that voters with more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-018-9468-2">sexist</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfy003">attitudes</a> were more likely to support Trump in 2016. </p>
<p>Eight years later, Trump employed a similar sexist playbook, questioning Haley’s qualifications, commenting on her appearance, characterizing her as “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-ramps-attacks-overly-ambitious-haley-potential-2024-gop-rivals">overly ambitious</a>” and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/12/politics/nikki-haley-husband-trump-attack/index.html">mocking her</a> for having an absentee husband. Haley’s husband is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/04/us/politics/nikki-haley-husband-michael.html">in the South Carolina National Guard</a> and currently deployed overseas.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OfgJBywAAAAJ&hl=en">We are</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OsXHylAAAAAJ&hl=en">political</a> <a href="https://polsci.umass.edu/people/adam-eichen">scientists who</a> <a href="https://polsci.umass.edu/research/umass-poll">field and analyze public opinion</a> surveys to better understand Americans’ attitudes. Using evidence from our recent <a href="https://polsci.umass.edu/sites/default/files/January2024NationalPollAllToplines.pdf">national poll</a>, we can examine how sexism influenced Republicans’ preferences in the 2024 Republican primary. </p>
<p>We first asked Republican respondents whom they would favor in the Republican presidential primary. Next, we measured sexist attitudes by asking respondents a series of questions about their prejudice, resentment and animus toward women. These attitudes are collectively known as “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-analysis/article/abs/optimizing-the-measurement-of-sexism-in-political-surveys/58A96CD10C45B2BFE66B585CAEB200F2">hostile sexism</a>.” We also collected information about Republicans’ demographic characteristics, political attitudes and beliefs about the economy.</p>
<p><iframe id="VMydQ" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/VMydQ/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Familiar foe of sexism in the electorate</h2>
<p>We find that individuals who supported Trump display much higher levels of sexism than those who favored Haley. Only 27% of Haley supporters agreed with the statement that “women seek to gain power by getting control over men,” but 38% of Trump voters agreed.</p>
<p>Likewise, when asked whether “women are too easily offended,” 52% of Trump supporters agreed, while 42% of those supporting Haley did so.</p>
<p>Finally, when provided with the prompt that “women exaggerate problems they have at work,” 37% of Trump voters agreed while only 25% of Haley voters expressed this view.</p>
<p>Next, we undertook an analysis that examined how sexist attitudes related to support for Trump relative to Haley, while taking into account demographic characteristics, political identities and views on the national economy.</p>
<p>This analysis confirmed that, even after taking into account these factors, individuals with more sexist attitudes were more likely to favor Trump over Haley.</p>
<p>In her challenge to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, Haley, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-gender/article/hostile-sexism-benevolent-sexism-and-american-elections/F47B3070DF5182CDE9EEBF2BE26E6FB9">like female candidates across the partisan divide</a>, contended with the familiar foe of sexism in the electorate. </p>
<p>While much is uncertain about the upcoming election, the nation will almost certainly continue to wait for its first female president.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Given her strengths and Donald Trump’s vulnerabilities, why did Nikki Haley fail to seriously challenge Trump’s dominant position in the GOP primaries? Sexism is part of the answer.Tatishe Nteta, Provost Professor of Political Science and Director of the UMass Amherst Poll, UMass AmherstAdam Eichen, PhD Student, Political Science, UMass AmherstJesse Rhodes, Associate Professor, Political Science, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210942024-01-16T17:39:58Z2024-01-16T17:39:58ZIowa was different this time – even if the outcome was as predicted<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569568/original/file-20240116-29-ryzaij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former President Donald Trump speaks in Des Moines, Iowa, shortly after his victory in the Iowa Caucus on Jan. 15, 2024. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-president-donald-trump-speaks-at-his-caucus-night-news-photo/1936448792?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Trounced, crushed, routed, dominated: Pick your verb to describe what former President Donald Trump did to his GOP rivals in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/15/us/elections/results-iowa-caucus.html">Jan. 15, 2024 Iowa caucus</a>. The Conversation U.S. asked <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Timothy-Hagle">two scholars</a> to <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WzUF8jAAAAAJ&hl=en">analyze the results</a>, in which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in second, with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley a close third.</em></p>
<h2>This year’s unique features</h2>
<p><strong>Timothy Hagle, University of Iowa</strong></p>
<p>Each installment of the Iowa caucuses has unusual or particularly interesting aspects. The 2024 caucuses were no exception. Because the Democrats have an incumbent in the White House, there was little activity on their side of the aisle. Especially so because the Democratic National Committee <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/iowa-democrats-new-caucus-process-work/story?id=106133768">removed Iowa from its first-in-the-nation position</a>. As a result, Iowa Democrats <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/iowa-democrats-new-caucus-process-work/story?id=106133768">abandoned the traditional caucuses</a> in favor of a mail-in procedure.</p>
<p>Although the Republican caucus race was technically open, those challenging former President Donald Trump faced an uphill battle. He ran <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/us/politics/iowa-caucus-state-politics.html">as if he were an incumbent</a>. In addition, a “<a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/dangerous-cold-snap-blankets-iowa-ahead-of-caucuses-/7439184.html">rally-round-the-chief</a>” effect meant that his several <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/did-donald-trumps-indictments-boost-his-poll-numbers-1832694">indictments didn’t damage his standing</a> in the polls, and sometimes improved it. </p>
<p>Speaking of polls, another interesting aspect of this caucus season was how static the polls seemed to be. <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/caucus/2024/01/13/iowa-poll-nikki-haley-leads-ron-desantis-ahead-of-republican-caucus-night-big-lead-for-donald-trump/72216523007/">Trump maintained a large lead</a> for the bulk of the period. DeSantis was in second and Haley in third for most of the campaign, after she surged following the first two debates. There was some movement among the other candidates, but mostly in the single-digits range.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569570/original/file-20240116-15-xk1ief.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Ron DeSantis wears a navy suit and bends down to shake people's hands as he walks on a stage. He stands in front of two large American flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569570/original/file-20240116-15-xk1ief.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569570/original/file-20240116-15-xk1ief.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569570/original/file-20240116-15-xk1ief.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569570/original/file-20240116-15-xk1ief.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569570/original/file-20240116-15-xk1ief.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569570/original/file-20240116-15-xk1ief.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569570/original/file-20240116-15-xk1ief.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Florida Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis arrives at a watch party during the Iowa Caucus in West Des Moines on Jan. 15, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/florida-governor-and-republican-presidential-hopeful-ron-news-photo/1928402087?adppopup=true">Christian Monterrosa/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The weather was obviously a big factor for this caucus cycle. Two large snowstorms in the week before the caucuses caused <a href="https://apnews.com/article/iowa-winter-weather-caucus-campaign-events-canceled-a4fd8a5550a05166534f7b330560cbc9">campaign events to be postponed, canceled or moved online</a>. Candidates were trying to make their closing arguments; this disruption likely hurt their plans and disappointed voters still looking to make a final decision on whom to support. In addition, the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/15/weather/weather-iowa-caucuses-cold-dg/index.html">extreme cold and severe wind chills on caucus night</a> may have helped <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/16/iowa-caucus-turnout/">drive turnout to lower numbers</a> than any year since 2004.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569573/original/file-20240116-15-gctpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Nikki Haley wears a pink blazer and speaks into a microphone, as she stands in front of a group of people sitting at tables watching her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569573/original/file-20240116-15-gctpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569573/original/file-20240116-15-gctpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569573/original/file-20240116-15-gctpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569573/original/file-20240116-15-gctpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569573/original/file-20240116-15-gctpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569573/original/file-20240116-15-gctpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569573/original/file-20240116-15-gctpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks during a campaign stop at a restaurant on Jan. 15, 2024, in Pella, Iowa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-former-u-n-ambassador-news-photo/1935522708?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>A diss to Iowa voters</h2>
<p><strong>Stephen J. Farnsworth, University of Mary Washington</strong></p>
<p>A key claim that Iowa caucus defenders make is that voters there are particularly effective at evaluating candidates by running them through a gauntlet of in-person, community meetings from one end of the state to the other.</p>
<p>Of course, character should matter a great deal in evaluating possible presidents. In fact, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-iowa-caucuses-became-the-first-major-challenge-of-us-presidential-campaigns-220509">Iowa caucus first came into its own</a> in 1976 for just that reason. That year, voters saw <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/01/14/jimmy-carter-iowa-caucuses/">Jimmy Carter</a>, a plain-spoken Georgia governor, as a strong moral contrast to former president Richard Nixon and the tumultuous years of Watergate.</p>
<p>But nearly 50 years later, Iowans apparently ignored Trump’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61084161">legal woes</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/03/05/few-americans-express-positive-views-of-trumps-conduct-in-office/">questionable personal conduct</a> and gave him an overwhelming victory. </p>
<p>Much of this was the result of Trump’s <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/haley-desantis-to-debate-in-iowa-as-trump-again-skips-confrontation/7434375.html">refusal to participate</a> in any of the Iowa debates. Trump preferred to have fawning conversations with Fox News hosts, instead of doing many traditional, give-and-take <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/14/donald-trump-iowa-rally-republican-caucuses">community conversations</a> with thoughtful voters – the very reason for the Iowa Caucus. </p>
<p>In a sense, Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/us/politics/iowa-caucus-state-politics.html">dissed Iowa voters</a>. And Iowa voters, as a group, let him get away with it – or even rewarded him for it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221094/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Hagle is affiliated with Republicans.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen J. Farnsworth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From the ‘static’ polls to Trump’s ‘dissing’ of voters, two political scientists look at the Iowa caucus and see more than just the fact that Trump won it, resoundingly.Timothy Hagle, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of IowaStephen J. Farnsworth, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the UMW Center for Leadership and Media Studies, University of Mary WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2212572024-01-16T16:49:48Z2024-01-16T16:49:48ZUS election 2024: Trump victory in Iowa caucus not as big as he may have hoped – here’s why Biden still wants him to get GOP nomination<p>News headlines <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/15/donald-trump-wins-iowa-caucus-republicans-nikki-haley">reporting Donald Trump’s victory</a> in the Iowa caucus on January 15 gave the impression of a much larger victory than should sensibly be drawn from this first expression of American electoral opinion in 2024. Iowa grabs attention because it’s the first of the 2024 election primaries, but the historical record also shows that it has only predicted the eventual winner on six out of 13 occasions since it took on this role in 1972. </p>
<p>The last successful GOP candidate who won the Iowa caucus was <a href="https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/01/15/iowa-caucus/iowa-caucus-track-record-00135501">George W Bush in 2000</a>.</p>
<p>This is partly because Iowa, with just over 3 million inhabitants represents less than 1% of the wider US population. Its voters are also much older, more rural, whiter (90%), more evangelical and less college educated than the US at large. Although formerly a swing state Iowa has been <a href="https://www.270towin.com/states/Iowa">solidly republican since 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Those turning out to vote for Trump were also a smaller, self-selecting subset of even that tiny population. Those supporting Trump were 51% of those registered Republicans who turned out to vote on one of the coldest nights of the year amounted to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/15/us/elections/results-iowa-caucus.html">just 110,298</a> people.</p>
<p>Similarly, Trump’s margin of victory needs context. His 51% share of the vote and margin of victory over the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, of 30%, are – as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/us/politics/trump-wins-iowa.html#">much of the press note</a> – “unprecedented”. But so is the fact of a former president standing in the primary and caucus process. This has not happened since <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover">Herbert Hoover ran, and lost, in 1940</a>. </p>
<p>Still styling himself “President Trump” and turning up with his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/us/politics/trump-wins-iowa.html#">secret service detail in full view</a> makes Trump unlike any of the other candidates. Similarly, his reputation, name recognition and constant presence in the news headlines over the past year have all contributed to his success in the mid-western state. So the result there has come as no surprise to close watchers of the process.</p>
<p>While Trump leaves Iowa in a strong position there remains the possibility that former South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley – who ran third in Iowa – could do sufficiently well in New Hampshire and South Carolina to carry on throughout the primary process as an alternative to Trump. But to do so would require her to match Trump’s attacks on her with a more critical response to the record and reputation of the former president. </p>
<p>Her reluctance to do so suggests to some that Haley is running for the number two spot in order to be picked as a <a href="https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/videos/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2024/01/05/republican-candidate-nikki-haley-on-if-shes-interested-in-becoming-trump-vice-president/72122693007/">potential vice-presidential nominee</a>. A more likely explanation for her failure to attack Trump harder is a desire not to alienate his fanatical base in the hope that she inherits the Republican Party nomination as a result of the unravelling of Trump’s current momentum due to legal reasons (he <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/25/what-next-donald-trump-indictment-charges-arrest/">presently faces 91 criminal charges</a>) or other unforeseen events.</p>
<h2>Biden wants Trump to win</h2>
<p>Joe Biden’s response to the news from Iowa was conspicuously unflustered. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67989135">He posted on X</a> (formerly Twitter) that: “this election was always going to be you and me versus extreme MAGA [Make America Great Again] Republicans. It was true yesterday and it’ll be true tomorrow.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1747111676761997607"}"></div></p>
<p>This is also how Biden and his team want it. Trump’s electoral record in national polls is dismal. He lost the popular vote in <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/live-update/elections-2020-updates/note-trump-lost-the-popular-vote-in-2016-but-won-the-electoral-college">2016</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54788636">2020</a> and candidates backed by him did very badly in the November 2018 and 2022 <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-midterms-america-appears-to-have-passed-peak-trump-194391">mid-term elections</a>. By contrast, polls pitting Biden against either Haley or DeSantis show a marked improvement in the prospect for the Republic Party. </p>
<p>Not only has Trump proved a minority taste for Americans nationally, but the Democrats are banking on Trump’s legal woes having a negative impact on his national standing as the year progresses. As the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/26/opinion/trump-polling-conviction.html">New York Times notes</a> “a mountain of public opinion data suggests voters would turn away from the former president” if he were actually convicted of a crime. </p>
<p>It is for this reason that Trump is employing every tactic possible to obstruct and delay any legal reckoning until after the primary process or ideally the general election in November itself. His hope is that by securing the Republican nomination he will be able to portray all the legal cases against him as partisan interference in the American electoral process and in doing so he hopes to avoid legal accountability. </p>
<p>By contrast, the Democrats see such a process as their best chance of overcoming Biden’s own unpopularity with the electorate.</p>
<h2>Negative ratings</h2>
<p>Whatever way the Republican Party nomination process plays out, however, Iowa should not be confused with the support that Trump has on a national basis. Trump’s national favourability ratings currently <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/548138/american-presidential-candidates-2024-election-favorable-ratings.aspx">stand at 42%</a>. While these are slightly better than Biden’s at 41% the key point here is that the likely two contenders for November’s election are closely matched in their overall lack of appeal with the American population at large. </p>
<p>This is a very different picture from that painted by the news coverage from the Iowa caucus. So the media needs to be careful not to oversell the idea of Trump’s success. It would be wrong to reach the conclusion from this one result that his political resurrection and eventual electoral triumph is in some way inevitable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Hastings Dunn has previously received funding from the ESRC, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Open Democracy Foundation and has previously been both a NATO and a Fulbright Fellow.</span></em></p>Donald Trump may be the GOP’s frontrunner, but there’s a good reason why President Biden wants to face him in November’s presidential election.David Hastings Dunn, Professor of International Politics in the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2201742024-01-16T13:25:01Z2024-01-16T13:25:01Z1 good thing about the Iowa caucuses, and 3 that are really troubling<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568921/original/file-20240111-19-ds4fma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=112%2C49%2C2238%2C1515&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears at a Fox News town hall in Des Moines, Iowa on Jan. 10, 2024. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-former-president-donald-news-photo/1923679596?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every four years, the Iowa caucuses find new ways to become a problematic part of the presidential nomination process. Democrats have abandoned the Iowa-first tradition, at least for 2024, but Republicans went full speed ahead with the caucuses on Jan. 15, 2024.</p>
<p>If they were being honest, most politicians and political experts who are not from Iowa – and not planning to curry favor with Iowans someday – would concede that this caucus-first system is <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/iowa-caucuses-predict-president-history/story?id=106131420">far from the best way</a> to start to select a presidential nominee, especially considering the low voter turnout in an overwhelmingly white state. But changing old, familiar processes is never easy, particularly during these highly contentious times. </p>
<p>Even so, candidates who talk about the traditional first caucus state sometimes make a political misstep by being honest. </p>
<p>Earlier this month, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/us/politics/iowa-new-hampshire-primary-haley.html">Republican candidate Nikki Haley</a> dissed Iowa, telling a New Hampshire audience that their state primary that occurs after the Iowa caucuses would correct the mistakes made in Iowa. “You know Iowa starts it,” she said. “You know that you correct it.”</p>
<p>That’s the sort of thing a candidate trying to do well in Iowa says after the caucuses – not before.</p>
<p>With such honesty, it’s not surprising that former President <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/primaries-and-caucuses/results/iowa/republican-presidential-primary">Donald Trump</a> earned 51% of the vote while GOP rivals Ron DeSantis could muster only 21% and Nikki Haley 19%. Further helping Trump was the shrinking field of GOP candidates that saw former Vice President <a href="https://apnews.com/article/mike-pence-2024-president-campaign-republican-trump-0ec44fc2a5b8683f34883e0ea72b2ab2">Mike Pence</a>, former New Jersey Gov. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/chris-christie-drops-2024-presidential-race-rcna127993">Chris Christie</a> and U.S. Senator <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/sen-tim-scott-drops-out-of-2024-presidential-race-shocking-donors-and-campaign-staff">Tim Scott</a> of South Carolina all drop out before the caucuses.</p>
<h2>Iowa’s upside for long-shot candidates</h2>
<p>Iowans, as well as residents of the traditional <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-hampshire-primary-date-2024-elections-first-in-the-nation-democrats/">first primary state of New Hampshire</a>, try to argue that their <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2022/10/27/iowa-poll-most-iowans-think-iowa-caucuses-should-remain-first/69561842007/">small-state selection processes</a> represent some of the last vestiges of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1957/12/norman-rockwells-america/640584/">Norman Rockwell’s America</a>, where deliberate, sober voters offer a grateful nation the carefully considered <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/new-hampshire-primary-president-joe-biden-gov-chris-sununu/">assessments of candidates</a> that come from community meetings too numerous to count. </p>
<p>That part of the argument is largely true – caucusgoers and voters in both states seem to take the process of evaluating potential presidents <a href="https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/iowans-take-voting-seriously/article_117b21cf-afa2-53f7-a996-e89976f136dd.html">very seriously</a>.</p>
<p>Fans of the Iowa caucuses also note that <a href="https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/politics/2023/09/24/lesser-known-republican-presidential-candidates-hope-iowa-caucuses-lift-their-chances/70924419007/">lesser-known candidates</a> can compete without having huge campaign war chests or political experience. But how is being inexperienced in government or being unpopular with party donors considered a good things for selecting presidents? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A brown-skinned man holds a microphone as dozens of white people listen to his campaign speech." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568684/original/file-20240110-21-yws4jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568684/original/file-20240110-21-yws4jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568684/original/file-20240110-21-yws4jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568684/original/file-20240110-21-yws4jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568684/original/file-20240110-21-yws4jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568684/original/file-20240110-21-yws4jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568684/original/file-20240110-21-yws4jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks in Decorah, Iowa, on Jan. 7, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-businessman-vivek-news-photo/1915569886?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>This year, Republican entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/02/politics/cnn-iowa-debate-qualified/index.html">star faded quickly</a>, and he failed to qualify for the final pre-Iowa debate hosted by CNN at Drake University in Des Moines. Ramaswamy could only <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/primaries-and-caucuses/results/iowa/republican-presidential-primary">pull in 7%</a> of Iowa caucus voters despite his boasts of visiting each of Iowa’s 99 counties, a feat officially known as a “<a href="https://politicaldictionary.com/words/full-grassley/">full Grassley</a>,” named for Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.</p>
<p>That’s part of a pattern for previous shooting stars in Iowa, including <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN20107Z/">Pete Buttigieg</a> in 2020, <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/caucus/2015/10/23/ben-carson-charges-9-points-ahead-of-donald-trump-iowa-poll-gop/74278414/">Ben Carson</a> in 2016, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/01/21/145553419/iowa-gop-officially-declares-santorum-the-iowa-caucus-winner">Rick Santorum</a> in 2012, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSWAT008623/">Mike Huckabee</a> in 2008 and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dean-scream-remembering-infamous-iowa-caucus-speech/story?id=36711830">Howard Dean</a> in 2004. </p>
<p>They didn’t last all that long after Iowa. And in some cases, they began to flame out before the caucuses.</p>
<h2>Modern-day media realities</h2>
<p>Despite all the small-town narratives, Iowa’s caucus season increasingly has become a media-saturated process just like everything else in American politics.</p>
<p>And running in Iowa costs far more than in the past. </p>
<p>In the 2024 presidential campaign, Republican campaigns spent more than <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/republicans-spend-100-million-iowa-ads-come-rcna130856">US$100 million</a> on 2024 Iowa caucuses advertising, which amounts to about $600 for every Republican caucus participant. In the 2020 presidential campaign, the total amount of ad spending was <a href="https://www.kwwl.com/news/2020-political-ad-spending-how-much-was-spent/article_13729727-896a-505c-90fb-f08159f56b28.html">$44 million</a> – and that included spending from Democratic and Republican candidates. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman wearing a red dress holda a microphone in front of a sign that says Fox News Democracy '24." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568728/original/file-20240110-31-oznma0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568728/original/file-20240110-31-oznma0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568728/original/file-20240110-31-oznma0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568728/original/file-20240110-31-oznma0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568728/original/file-20240110-31-oznma0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568728/original/file-20240110-31-oznma0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568728/original/file-20240110-31-oznma0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley participates in a Fox News town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 8, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-former-u-n-ambassador-news-photo/1918255110?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The media’s outsized role involves more than just receiving inflated campaign spending. The fact that reporters focus on <a href="https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/horse-race-reporting-election/">horse-race dynamics</a> and downplay issues has long been a problem that diminishes interest and voter turnout, as media scholar <a href="https://communication.gmu.edu/people/slichter">S. Robert Lichter</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=WzUF8jAAAAAJ">I</a> demonstrated in our 2010 book “<a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442200678/The-Nightly-News-Nightmare-Media-Coverage-of-U.S.-Presidential-Elections-1988-2008-Third-Edition">The Nightly News Nightmare</a>.”</p>
<p>Those who defend Iowa and New Hampshire say they are more accessible to lesser-known and inexperienced candidates, but national polling and fundraising, as well as media coverage, are increasingly used as criteria determining who can effectively participate in these small-state processes and who can’t.</p>
<h2>Long-standing flaws</h2>
<p>Another problem with Iowa is the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/01/31/what-to-know-about-the-iowa-caucuses/">low level of turnout</a>, despite the state’s privileged position. The largest Republican caucus turnout was 180,000 voters in 2016, and the best year for <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/02/07/election-2020-democratic-iowa-caucuses-turnout-eclipsed-2016-fell-short-2008/4691004002/">Democratic turnout</a> was 240,000 voters in 2008, when Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton. </p>
<p>Neither number is all that impressive in a state with a population of <a href="https://publications.iowa.gov/135/1/profile/8-14.html#">nearly 3 million people</a> and about <a href="https://independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/ia">2 million registered voters</a>, of whom about 630,000 are registered Republicans. If Iowa switched to a primary, which would allow a daylong window for voting, evidence demonstrates there would be a lot more participation. Here’s why. </p>
<p>With limited exceptions, Iowa caucuses require a voter to appear in person during the evening in the middle of winter. This year, that meant at 7 p.m. on an evening that hit below-zero temperatures and heavy snow. Even for Iowans accustomed to the cold, turnout was lower as a result.</p>
<p>But unlike a caucus, a primary allows a person to devote only a few minutes to vote via mail or in person at a convenient time and place.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white man carres his daughter on his shoulders as he walks with hundreds of other white people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568710/original/file-20240110-27-4k757a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568710/original/file-20240110-27-4k757a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568710/original/file-20240110-27-4k757a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568710/original/file-20240110-27-4k757a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568710/original/file-20240110-27-4k757a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568710/original/file-20240110-27-4k757a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568710/original/file-20240110-27-4k757a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Republican presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida carries his daughter Madison while walking through the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on Aug. 12, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-florida-gov-ron-desantis-news-photo/1610098448?adppopup=true">Brandon Bell/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Aside from the convenience factor, the major problem with the Iowa caucuses is that the state does not remotely look like America.</p>
<p>According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the vast majority – <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/iowa-population">88%</a> – of Iowans are white. For the U.S. as a whole, that figure is about <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045222">75%</a>. What that means is that caucus results may not be reflective of the nation as a whole but merely a snapshot of a certain small-town, folksy part of America.</p>
<h2>Vote-counting delays</h2>
<p>Maybe some of these problems could be excused if the process worked well. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/upshot/iowa-caucuses-errors-results.html">it does not</a>.</p>
<p>Despite decades of experience in running caucuses, Iowa has demonstrated that it frequently cannot count. The New York Times described the 2020 Iowa caucuses as an “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/us/politics/iowa-democratic-caucuses.html">epic meltdown</a>,” as results were not finalized for days.</p>
<p>The 2024 process went smoothly, but the 2020 caucuses weren’t the first to have problems. The 2012 Republican contest also suffered from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/report-santorum-finished-34-votes-ahead-of-%20romney-in-new-iowa-tally-votes-from-8-precincts-missing/2012/01/19/gIQAJGuRAQ_story.html">counting misfires</a> that took two weeks to resolve. </p>
<p>A delay in reporting results is not necessarily a bad thing. One wants to ensure accuracy, and delays of days for election results are normal in closely fought contests. But Iowa has demonstrated that its caucuses seem to generate more problems when it comes to reporting results than primaries do.</p>
<p>Democrats <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/iowa-politics-democrats-republican-campaign-1d624898">abandoned the 2024 Iowa caucuses</a> following the 2020 mess there and perhaps in part because President Joe Biden could hardly feel positively about the caucus system after <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/02/05/joe-biden-calls-4th-place-iowa-caucus-finish-gut-punch/4669943002/">his fourth-place finish</a> there in 2020.</p>
<p>This year, the Democratic process effectively bypasses Iowa and New Hampshire and starts with the South Carolina primary.</p>
<h2>A possible alternative?</h2>
<p>How might one fix these issues?</p>
<p>Well, scholars suggest a range of alternatives, including a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Imperfect-Primary-Oddities-Biases-and-%20Strengths-of-US-Presidential/Norrander/p/book/9780367274948">one-day, nationwide primary</a>, a small-state-first system that groups states of similar population sizes, or perhaps a series of five or so multistate regional primary contests, with the order of the regional groups determined by lottery. </p>
<p>None of these alternatives seems likely to happen, though, and that means the various problems with the Iowa caucus process will continue, regardless of which party is conducting one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220174/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen J. Farnsworth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Iowa caucuses have long been an oddity in modern-day politics but remain a place where GOP candidates can test their presidential aspirations.Stephen J. Farnsworth, Professor of Political Science and Director, Center for Leadership and Media Studies, University of Mary WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2195482024-01-08T13:35:53Z2024-01-08T13:35:53ZAn overlooked and undercounted group of Arab American and Muslim voters may have outsized impact on 2024 presidential election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567954/original/file-20240104-15-bqu0rz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=766%2C125%2C3227%2C2532&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People demonstrate in support of Palestinians on Oct. 14, 2023, in Dearborn, Mich.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-demonstrate-in-support-of-palestinians-in-dearborn-news-photo/1724359826?adppopup=true">Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Though domestic issues tend to motivate most U.S. voters, the war in the Middle East may be the dominant issue in mind for an increasingly important voting block: <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/arab-and-muslim-americans-on-how-u-s-support-for-israel-could-affect-their-votes-in-2024">Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans</a>. </p>
<p>Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, members of these communities have watched the rising death toll and heard vivid accounts of the horrors befalling Palestinians in Gaza as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to bombard the enclave with the support of the Biden administration.</p>
<p>For some Arab Americans, a community that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/17/1213668804/arab-americans-michigan-voters-biden-israel-hamas-palestinians">overwhelmingly voted Democratic</a> in the 2020 presidential election, that support may have negative consequences on Biden’s attempt to regain the White House in 2024. In fact, numerous Middle Eastern and Muslim American leaders have called for their communities to “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/muslim-americans-face-abandon-biden-dilemma-then-who-2023-12-02/">abandon Biden</a>” in the upcoming presidential election.</p>
<p>The question, then, is what effect such defections could have on Biden’s chances of winning reelection. </p>
<p>As a whole, the number of Middle Eastern or Muslim Americans is quite small. According to the 2020 census – the first year such data was recorded – <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/2020-census-dhc-a-mena-population.html#:%7E:text=Who%20Identified%20as%20a%20Detailed%20MENA%20Group%3F,population">3.5 million</a> Americans reported being of Middle Eastern and North African descent, about 1% of the total U.S. population of nearly <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/">335 million citizens</a>.</p>
<p>But the outcome of the 2024 presidential election may come down to results in a few swing states where Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans are concentrated, such as Michigan, Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona. </p>
<p>In the 2020 presidential election, for instance, Biden won the state of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/03/928191195/michigan-live-election-results-2020">Michigan</a> by a total of 154,000 votes. The state is home to overlapping groups of more than <a href="https://emgageusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Emgage-ImpactReport-2020-v2.4-lr-1.pdf">200,000 registered voters</a> who are Muslim and <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/2020-census-dhc-a-mena-population.html#:%7E:text=Who%20Identified%20as%20a%20Detailed%20MENA%20Group%3F,population">300,000</a> who claim ancestry from the Middle East and North Africa.</p>
<h2>Working around statistical erasure</h2>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=J4rDIpUAAAAJ&hl=en">social scientist</a>, I specialize in statistical analysis and research on how race, ethnicity and religion affect political outcomes in the U.S. I know from firsthand experience that any effort to gauge the attitudes and behaviors of Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans requires a bit of analytic gymnastics. </p>
<p>For starters, since 1977, the U.S. government <a href="https://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/help/populations/bridged-race/directive15.html">has categorized</a> those with ancestral ties to the “original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East” as “white,” according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.</p>
<p>That stipulation is found in that agency’s Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting and is used in <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/note/US/RHI625222#:%7E:text=A%20person%20having%20origins%20in,Italian%2C%20Lebanese%2C%20and%20Egyptian.">U.S. census reports</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, members of this community are subsumed within an expansive grouping of “whites” that effectively renders them invisible in nearly all administrative data and public opinion polls. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman wearing a religious cloth over her head stands in the middle of a crowd of people holding a sign that reads Gaza." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567956/original/file-20240104-19-khocln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Muslim American supporters of Palestine hold a rally on Oct. 21, 2023, in Brooklyn, N.Y.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nysupporters-of-palestine-hold-a-rally-in-the-bay-ridge-news-photo/1749087314?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Similarly, Muslims are not captured in official data, as the U.S. <a href="https://ask.census.gov/prweb/PRServletCustom/app/ECORRAsk2/YACFBFye-rFIz_FoGtyvDRUGg1Uzu5Mn*/!STANDARD?pzuiactionzzz=CXtpbn0rTEpMcGRYOG1vS0tqTFAwaENUZWpvM1NNWEMzZ3p5aFpnWUxzVmw0TjJndno5ZkJPc24xNWYvcCtNbVVjWk5Z*#:%7E:text=Public%20Law%2094%2D521%20prohibits,practices%2C%20on%20a%20voluntary%20basis.">does not record</a> its citizens’ religious affiliations. </p>
<p>Even public opinion surveys that record religious denomination typically offer little to no insight into this community. When it comes to more prevalent religious groups – <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/catholic/party-affiliation/">Catholics</a>, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/324410/religious-group-voting-2020-election.aspx">Protestants</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/white-evangelicals-likely-side-gop-donald-trump-rcna47593">white evangelicals </a> – their opinions are frequently reported and the subject of many polls. </p>
<p>But Muslims are nearly always relegated to the “other non-Christian” religious category, along with similarly small faith communities.</p>
<p>This is not to say that relevant data on Muslims and Middle Easterners in the U.S. is unavailable. For example, <a href="https://emgageusa.org/">Emgage</a>, a nonprofit Muslim advocacy group, collected such data on eligible voters and turnout in a dozen states during the 2020 presidential election. </p>
<p>By combining the <a href="https://emgageusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Emgage-ImpactReport-2020-v2.4-lr-1.pdf">data from Emgage</a> with data collected by AP VoteCast, the Cooperative Election Survey and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one can reach a few general conclusions about these communities.</p>
<h2>Impact of defections on 2024 presidential campaign</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aaiusa.org/library/arab-americans-special-poll-domestic-implications-of-the-most-recent-outbreak-of-violence-in-palestineisrael">Arab American Institute</a>, an advocacy group, says that since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Arab American support for the Democratic Party has plummeted from 59% in 2020 to just 17%. </p>
<p>Among <a href="https://emgageusa.org/press-release/emgage-releases-survey-findings-about-muslim-americans-current-2024-election-predictions/">Muslim Americans</a> the drop is worse, from 70% in 2020 to about 10% at the end of 2023. </p>
<p>If these poll numbers hold true until Nov. 7, the 2024 presidential election would be the first time in nearly 30 years that the Democrats were not the party of choice for Arab American voters.</p>
<p>That doesn’t necessarily mean that these voters would go to the GOP. In 2020, then-President <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-travel-ban-is-just-one-of-many-us-policies-that-legalize-discrimination-against-muslims-89334">Donald Trump</a> proved to be an unpopular choice among Arab and Muslim American voters, in large part due to his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/17/trump-muslim-ban-gaza-refugees">executive order 13769</a>. </p>
<p>Signed on Jan. 27, 2017, the order immediately prohibited the entry of immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and came to be known by critics as the Muslim ban. Though the order survived numerous legal challenges, it <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/06/974339586/biden-has-overturned-trumps-muslim-travel-ban-activists-say-thats-not-enough">was eventually overturned</a> by Biden shortly after he took office in January 2021.</p>
<p>Trump has already promised during campaign stops to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pledges-expel-immigrants-who-support-hamas-ban-muslims-us-2023-10-16/">reinstate his policy</a>.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, Biden won overwhelming majorities in these communities in 2020.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle aged white man wearing a business suit is taking a picture of people celebrating a holiday." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567773/original/file-20240103-23-6aehex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. President Joe Biden, left, takes selfies on May 1, 2023, at the White House during a reception celebrating the end of Ramadan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-takes-selfies-with-guests-during-a-news-photo/1486918953?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>But it is not out of the realm of possibility that the votes cast by Middle Easterners and Muslims for the Republican and Democratic candidates for president in 2024 drop by 50% from 2020, as those voters decide to stay home or vote for a third-party candidate. </p>
<p>In Michigan, for example, that could mean <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Eky2iFW98vrdC4Oe53ssjEesvkNZh-oYDbE02NJmN-c/edit?usp=sharing">Biden would lose about 55,000 votes</a>, or about a third of the 154,000-vote margin of victory he earned over Trump in 2020.</p>
<p>Michigan is not the only state where no-shows in these communities could jeopardize Biden’s prospects for victory. </p>
<p>Decreased turnout among Middle Eastern, North African and Muslim Americans alone would be enough to erase <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/940689086/narrow-wins-in-these-key-states-powered-biden-to-the-presidency">Biden’s 2020 margins of victory</a> in Arizona – 10,457 votes – and nearly do the same in Georgia, where Biden won by 12,670 votes.</p>
<p>Of course, Arab Americans are not the only ones likely to penalize Biden at the ballot box next November over his <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/joe-biden-united-states-foreign-policy-ukraine-israel-hamas-war-taiwan/">foreign policy</a>. But even if they were, the numbers show that a presidential election may swing on a lesser-known but potentially crucial voting bloc.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Youssef Chouhoud does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Though Arab Americans voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, polling suggests that support has eroded since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel.Youssef Chouhoud, Assistant Professor, Christopher Newport UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2203682024-01-05T13:45:57Z2024-01-05T13:45:57ZTrump’s Iowa political organizing this year is nothing like his scattershot 2016 campaign<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567701/original/file-20240103-21-taglo9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=74%2C12%2C6094%2C5509&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump has mounted a major effort to teach people how to caucus for him.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2024Iowa/18e57d55a45d41509fcc1067eb1ca80f/photo?Query=Trump%20Iowa%20Caucus%202024&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=12&currentItemNo=6">AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Donald Trump is doing something new in Iowa.</p>
<p>The state is home to the first-in-the-nation GOP nomination event, the Iowa caucus, which takes place on Jan. 15, 2024, at 7 pm. Trump, the former president, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/trump-leads-polls-as-iowa-caucuses-near/">holds a resounding lead</a> over his rivals. </p>
<p>What’s new for Trump in this campaign is actually old stuff – a throwback to traditional caucus campaigning. I’ve observed Iowa caucus campaigns over eight cycles, and my 2022 book, “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Inside-the-Bubble-Campaigns-Caucuses-and-the-Future-of-the-Presidential/Trish-Menner/p/book/9780367429782">Inside the Bubble</a>,” offers a close-up of the 2020 Democratic contest. Against that backdrop, it’s clear that the former president is taking cues from those who’ve come before him. </p>
<p>The widely accepted path to caucus success – first paved in 1976 by then-unknown Jimmy Carter on his way to the Democratic nomination and eventually the White House – is to “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/la-xpm-2011-dec-16-la-na-iowa-caucuses-gingrich-20111217-story.html">organize, organize, organize</a>,” as many campaign staff will tell you. Since then, it’s been the mantra for candidates of both parties – and this year, that includes Trump. </p>
<p>But such attention to organizing is a shift for the Trump campaign. Today, it looks <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us/politics/donald-trumps-iowa-ground-game-seems-to-be-missing-a-coach.html">nothing like the scattershot</a> campaign from 2016, the only other time Trump has waged a nomination battle in the state. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567699/original/file-20240103-27-m6tpnh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A card with printing on it that asks people to sign up to work on the Trump campaign." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567699/original/file-20240103-27-m6tpnh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567699/original/file-20240103-27-m6tpnh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567699/original/file-20240103-27-m6tpnh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567699/original/file-20240103-27-m6tpnh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567699/original/file-20240103-27-m6tpnh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567699/original/file-20240103-27-m6tpnh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/567699/original/file-20240103-27-m6tpnh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Commit to caucus’ cards on a table before the start of a campaign event hosted by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Dec. 13, 2023, in Coralville, Iowa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/commit-to-caucus-cards-sit-on-a-table-before-the-start-of-a-news-photo/1853187847?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Car rides, phone calls</h2>
<p>A caucus in Iowa is a first step in a series of events that will ultimately select delegates to the national convention that formally nominates the presidential candidate. Unlike a primary, in which voters go to a polling place and cast a ballot, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Caucus">a caucus is a political party meeting</a> at which people discuss the candidates and then vote. </p>
<p>Caucuses are held in each of the approximately 1,700 precincts in Iowa. Registered party members can participate in the caucuses, and attendees will signal their support by writing a candidate’s name on a piece of paper. </p>
<p>Organizing isn’t unique to Iowa caucus politics, and it means different things depending on the context. In electoral politics across the U.S., <a href="https://hls.harvard.edu/bernard-koteen-office-of-public-interest-advising/a-quick-guide-to-working-on-political-campaigns/">campaigns organize by doling out responsibilities</a> to field staff positioned across a state or electoral district. These staff, then, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Get_out_the_vote">amass volunteers to get-out-the-vote</a>, either on election day or – in some states – in an early voting window before the election. </p>
<p>A typical organizing effort in caucus politics identifies early supporters of a candidate and asks them to be the foundation for a larger volunteer structure. These volunteers engage in outreach to other potential supporters – sometimes in-person, via door-to-door canvassing or on the phone, and increasingly by sending text messages. They’ll make sure that known supporters get assistance they might need to get to the caucus, such as a car ride.</p>
<p>The personal element of organizing is well-suited to caucus politics, which poses unique challenges to campaigns. Like primaries, caucuses are within political parties, so voters can’t rely on cues like party labels to pick a candidate. Instead, a friend or family member volunteering for a candidate just might be persuasive.</p>
<p>Caucus organizers can help voters navigate a byzantine process. </p>
<p>Unlike primaries, which involve a daylong window for voting, caucuses are scheduled for a specific day at sometimes obscure locations; this year’s Jan. 15 date coincides with Martin Luther King Day. Caucuses always start at 7 p.m., and they last as long as it takes to conclude business, which is likely an hour. This process can be intimidating, and effective organization can educate supporters and help ensure they show up. </p>
<h2>Campaign bling</h2>
<p>Trump’s nod to organizing is noteworthy and is at odds with his brand, which is more focused on stirring the pot and agitating, rather than painstakingly building an infrastructure. </p>
<p>Back in 2016, reluctant Trump volunteers, unfamiliar with caucus procedures, courted Iowa supporters. And while the headquarters of rival candidates were abuzz with activity, Trump’s was deserted. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/01/us/politics/trump-iowa-caucuses.html#:%7E:text=Then%20everybody%20votes.-,Mr.%20Trump%20blamed%20his%20second%2Dplace%20finish%20in%20Iowa%20in,Iowa%20operation%20at%20the%20time.">Trump came in second</a> in that year’s caucus. </p>
<p>Now, Trump’s <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/donald-trumps-2024-campaign-quietly-151635443.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall">2024 field army</a> of some 2,000 caucus captains, many of whom have already gone through formal training, are the front-line recruiters in the lead-up to this year’s caucus. They carry out tasks on behalf of the campaign at events themselves. Lest this all seem overly staid, there’s bling, too – <a href="https://x.com/NickAdamsinUSA/status/1739702608615333942?s=20">a limited edition white and gold variant</a> of the distinctive MAGA cap for the captains.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1739702608615333942"}"></div></p>
<p>Of Trump’s GOP rivals, it’s Vivek Ramaswamy, the young biotech entrepreneur new to politics, who’s working the hardest to meet Republican activists face to face. With a schedule packed with “town hall” appearances, as many as eight or nine daily, Ramaswamy is on the <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/05/03/pizza-ranch-circuit-iowa-caucuses/26844813/">Pizza Ranch circuit</a>, taking advantage of the community rooms in the Iowa-based restaurant chain with a Christian conservative corporate vision.</p>
<h2>Caucus 101 lessons</h2>
<p>Trump’s caucus events are different. They’re large rallies with hundreds in attendance – and since mid-October, most of them are billed as “Commit to Caucus” events. The events have considerable time devoted to instructing the crowd about how to caucus, which is an unusual use of time at campaign events. It’s also a little perplexing, but potentially conveys some meaning.</p>
<p>The typical rally requires attendees to register and be in place well before the event begins, perhaps 1-2 hours early. Attendees are primed with a playlist and some B-list endorsers. They have included a losing congressional candidate, Trump’s former <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/08/665832951/who-is-acting-attorney-general-matthew-whitaker">acting attorney general</a> after he fired Jeff Sessions, and the Iowa attorney general. </p>
<p>Despite Trump’s commanding lead in the polls, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-endorsed-iowa-evangelical-leader-bob-vander-plaats-rcna126189">local GOP stars</a> – like Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and prominent Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats – are on Team (Ron) DeSantis.</p>
<p>But early in these Trump rallies, the program pivots to a Caucus 101-like presentation – how to find out where to caucus, what to do in advance and what to expect at the caucuses. </p>
<p>The other GOP candidates do this at their events to a much lesser extent, if at all. And in a heavily reported gaffe, Casey DeSantis, the spouse of the Florida governor, actually conveyed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/09/casey-desantis-ron-desantis-iowa-election-fraud">incorrect instructions</a>, saying that non-Iowans can participate in the Iowa caucuses. </p>
<p>The how-to-caucus component of Trump campaign events could be nothing more than filler, something to occupy the attention of a confined crowd forced to be in place for hours. It might even be ill-advised, patently naïve because it’s instructing not only Trump supporters, but also Republicans in other candidates’ camps. <a href="https://iowademocrats.org/2020-caucus-training/">When Democratic candidates have offered such instruction</a> in the past, it’s been behind closed doors, reserved for known supporters and closer to caucus time.</p>
<p>It’s just possible that there’s more to this, some deeper meaning in the former president signing off on an effort to build an organization. Perhaps he recognizes that celebrity will only take him so far, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/01/us/politics/trump-iowa-caucuses.html#:%7E:text=Then%20everybody%20votes.-,Mr.%20Trump%20blamed%20his%20second%2Dplace%20finish%20in%20Iowa%20in,Iowa%20operation%20at%20the%20time.">that attention to the traditional tools of politics</a> might be in his best interests.</p>
<p>In that spirit, last summer Trump’s campaign scored a big win in California, where it successfully pushed for <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2023/0801/Winner-takes-all-California-Republicans-modify-electoral-strategy">Trump-friendly processes</a> in that state’s winner-take-all presidential primary. Whether simply finding ways to modify rules to his advantage – or flat-out rigging the system – this new Trump approach is time-honored.</p>
<p>And it just might give Democrats even more cause for concern. A second term might be fueled with a little more political know-how to advance the Trump agenda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220368/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barbara A. Trish does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump’s Iowa caucus campaign is very nuts-and-bolts. That may be a recognition that celebrity will only take him so far and attention to traditional political tools might be in his interest.Barbara A. Trish, Professor of Political Science, Grinnell CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2172522023-11-09T13:36:28Z2023-11-09T13:36:28ZWith government funding running out soon, expect more brinkmanship despite public dismay at political gridlock<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558474/original/file-20231108-27-e7mj5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C26%2C4391%2C4114&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When Democrats and Republicans fight, do Americans win?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/government-fight-royalty-free-image/1094058960">wildpixel/iStock / Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Much of the news coverage of the discussions and negotiations <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/07/congress-shutdown-house-gop-plan/">aimed at averting a government shutdown</a> on Nov. 17, 2023, relies on pundits and their unnamed sources, on leaks, speculation, wishful thinking and maybe even the reading of tea leaves. The Conversation tapped an expert on congressional behavior, Northwestern University political scientist <a href="https://sites.northwestern.edu/lharbridgeyong/">Laurel Harbridge-Yong</a>, and asked her what she sees when she looks at the prolonged trouble Congress has had over the past few years coming to agreement on the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republicans-look-use-debt-limit-tactics-funding-fight-rcna90876">debt ceiling and</a> <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/collision-course-government-funding-raises-fears-shutdown-rcna88849">spending to keep the government open</a>. Harbridge-Yong is a specialist in partisan conflict and the lack of bipartisan agreement in American politics, so her expertise is tailor-made for the moment.</em> </p>
<h2>What do the repeated and difficult debt limit and budget negotiations in Congress look like to you?</h2>
<p>The problems that Congress and the White House are having in reaching compromises highlight two aspects of contemporary politics. The first: Since the 1970s, both the House and Senate have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/">become much more polarized</a>. Members of the two parties are more unified internally and further apart from the opposing party. You don’t have the overlap between parties now that existed 50 years ago. </p>
<p>Even as the U.S. has experienced rising polarization, there are still <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/356174/democrats-big-political-tent-helps-explain-stalemate.aspx">important differences within the parties</a>. Not every Democrat is the same as another and not every Republican is the same. </p>
<p>This relates to a second point: Members’ individual and collective interests shape their behavior. For <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/06/republicans-debt-ceiling-mccarthy-freedom-caucus">Republicans in more competitive districts</a>, their own individual electoral interests probably say, “Let’s cut a deal. Let’s not risk a default on the debt or a government shutdown that the Republicans get blamed for, and which is going to run really poorly in my district.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558487/original/file-20231108-29-z58kr0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man holding a leather folio and standing at microphones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558487/original/file-20231108-29-z58kr0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558487/original/file-20231108-29-z58kr0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558487/original/file-20231108-29-z58kr0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558487/original/file-20231108-29-z58kr0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558487/original/file-20231108-29-z58kr0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558487/original/file-20231108-29-z58kr0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558487/original/file-20231108-29-z58kr0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, will have to keep his GOP caucus happy while making a deal with Democrats to pass government funding.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-mike-johnson-gives-a-brief-statement-news-photo/1746072258?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-house-hardliners-could-try-block-debt-ceiling-deal-without-robust-cuts-2023-05-18/">House Freedom Caucus Republicans</a> come from really safe districts, and they care more about their primary elections than they do their general elections. So their own electoral interests say, “Stand firm, fight till the bitter end, try to force the hand of the president.” </p>
<p>These kinds of electoral interests occur at the individual and collective levels for members of a party. Since the 1990s, there’s been <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-polisci-072012-113747">a lot more competition for majority control</a>, and as a result the two parties don’t want to do something that gives the other party a win in the eyes of the voter. </p>
<p>So you now have many Republicans who are more willing to fight quite hard against the Democrats because they don’t want to give a win to Biden. This is most evident among the most conservative wing of the party, which has both individual and collective reasons to oppose a compromise. The far-right wing recently showed its power over the party, both through <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mccarthy-says-he-thinks-he-will-survive-leadership-challenge-us-house-2023-10-03/">ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy</a> – in large part for his willingness to broker deals and compromise with Democrats – and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/25/politics/house-speaker-vote-republicans/index.html">influencing the selection of the new speaker, Mike Johnson</a>. </p>
<p>Johnson may be less willing to broker compromises with the Democrats <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-25/what-to-know-about-trump-backed-speaker-candidate-mike-johnson">because of his own preferences</a> and because he needs to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/27/what-weve-learned-about-mike-johnson-so-far-00123924">maintain the support of the far-right members</a> in his party. Beyond the far-right wing of the party, other conservative Republicans might also believe that insisting on major spending cuts and concessions from the Democrats will boost the electoral fortunes of their party.</p>
<p>Democrats are also resistant to compromising, both because they <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2023/05/24/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-35/">don’t want to gut programs</a> that they put in place and also because they don’t want to make this look like a win for Republicans, who have been able to play chicken and get what they wanted. </p>
<p>These dynamics, layered on top of policy interests, all contribute to the problems that we’re seeing now. </p>
<h2>What has been the role of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/19/1149861784/debt-ceiling-brinksmanship">brinkmanship in these conflicts</a>?</h2>
<p>When I think of brinkmanship, I’m thinking about negotiating tactics that push things until the very last minute to try to secure the most concessions for your side. During the May 2023 version of these negotiations, that meant <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/24/debt-ceiling-gop-demands/">coming to the edge of potential default</a> on the debt. This fall, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/government-shutdown-deadline-09-30-23/index.html">Congress passed a short-term funding bill</a> with only hours to spare before the government shut down. Now, it faces the <a href="https://www.federaltimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2023/11/06/less-than-two-weeks-to-go-before-the-next-government-shutdown-deadline/">next deadline to fund the government by November 17</a>.</p>
<h2>Does brinkmanship work?</h2>
<p>I was looking back at some of the previous government <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-debt-ceiling-crises-and-the-political-chaos-theyve-unleashed-205178">shutdowns as well as debt ceiling negotiations</a>. In some instances, concessions by the other side were granted, so brinkmanship paid off. In other instances it was less obvious that there was a win, and in some instances there was perhaps a penalty, when the parties couldn’t agree and there was a government shutdown. </p>
<p>One party may be banking on the fact that the other party’s going to get blamed by the public while their own party reputation won’t be hurt. In the 1990s, it seemed as though it was the <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voters-blamed-gop-for-1995-shutdown_n_842769">Republicans who took the brunt</a> of the blame for a government shutdown. </p>
<p>There have been instances in which parties get something out of brinkmanship, as in the government shutdown at the beginning of the Trump administration over <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/25/trump-shutdown-announcement-1125529">funding for the border wall</a>. The Democrats ended up giving some money for the border wall. It wasn’t all of what Trump wanted, but it was part of what Trump and the Republicans wanted.</p>
<p>Brinkmanship and gridlock are disproportionately consequential for Democrats, who generally <a href="https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/">want to expand government programs</a>, versus for Republicans, who tend to want to <a href="https://prod-static.gop.com/media/Resolution_Platform.pdf?_gl=1*gor9yy*_gcl_au*MTY3NTEyMDk2NC4xNjgyNTE4Nzc1&_ga=2.185781033.1441572001.1685048771-688242051.1682518780">constrict government programs</a>. So gridlock or forced spending cuts are easier for Republicans to stomach than Democrats. It may be part of why we see Republicans, especially on the far right, going harder on this kind of brinkmanship. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528424/original/file-20230525-17-jqufsl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C25%2C8575%2C5665&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men sitting in yellow armchairs in front of an elegant fireplace." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528424/original/file-20230525-17-jqufsl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C25%2C8575%2C5665&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528424/original/file-20230525-17-jqufsl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528424/original/file-20230525-17-jqufsl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528424/original/file-20230525-17-jqufsl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528424/original/file-20230525-17-jqufsl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528424/original/file-20230525-17-jqufsl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528424/original/file-20230525-17-jqufsl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kevin McCarthy, then the House speaker, at left, meets with President Joe Biden to discuss the debt limit in the White House on May 22, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BidenDebtLimit/6f1e6ced06ab4a0b81026f02e69825f6/photo?Query=debt%20limit&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1596&currentItemNo=307">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How does the public see brinkmanship?</h2>
<p>On the whole, I think the public doesn’t like it. </p>
<p>My own work has shown that the <a href="https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/documents/policy-briefs/harbridge-policybrief-2020.pdf?linkId=84025998">public does not like gridlock</a> on issues in which people agree on the end goal. The public, on average, even prefers a victory for the other side over policy gridlock. </p>
<p>A win for their own side is the best outcome, a compromise is next best, a win for the other side is next best after that. Gridlock is the worst outcome. </p>
<p>The place where it gets a little bit more challenging is that how people understand and interpret politics is heavily <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.072805.103054">shaped by how politics is framed to them</a>. </p>
<p>Looking back at the debt ceiling negotiations: Conservative politicians and media spun the issue very much as a <a href="https://lucas.house.gov/posts/lucas-statement-on-house-gop-plan-addressing-debt-ceiling-applauds-passage-of-limit-save-grow-act">fiscal responsibility</a> question, saying it was just like a family’s personal budget at home or that it was really important to not just raise the debt limit without <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/26/us/politics/debt-limit-vote-republicans.html">spending concessions</a>. </p>
<p>Those on the Democratic side heard that the Republicans were <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5072354/congressional-democrats-accuse-republicans-holding-economy-hostage-debt-limit-talks">holding the country hostage</a>, that we can’t give in to them, <a href="https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/speaker-mccarthy-puts-nation-s-economy-at-risk">this will gut really important programs</a>, and so forth.</p>
<p>So on the one hand, the public doesn’t like gridlock – especially gridlock when the consequences are so bad, as default or a shutdown would be. On the other hand, voters in each party’s base hear the issues framed in very different ways. Both sides may <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/debt-ceiling-crisis-democrats-gop">end up blaming the other side</a>. They’re not necessarily going to be calling their legislators and asking them to compromise.</p>
<h2>Democracy is about representation. As they conduct negotiations, do lawmakers see themselves as representing voters?</h2>
<p>Many conservative Republicans who hold firm in budget negotiations may believe that they are good representatives of what the base wants. In <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/rejecting-compromise/01F2DA900C72ACF02E1B3ECF4EED43D3">the recent book</a> that I wrote with Sarah Anderson and Daniel Butler, we found that legislators of both parties believe their primary voters want them to reject compromises. </p>
<p>But in today’s conflicts, those constituents may not really understand the consequences. Sometimes good representation doesn’t just mean doing what the public wants – legislators have better information or understanding of how things work and should do what’s in the best interests of their constituents.</p>
<p>However, even if individual members think they’re representing their constituents, representation at the aggregate level can be poor. </p>
<p>What the public as a whole – which tends to be more moderate – wants is compromise and resolution.</p>
<p><em>This story is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/voters-want-compromise-in-congress-so-why-the-brinkmanship-over-the-debt-ceiling-206465">a story originally published</a> on May 26, 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurel Harbridge-Yong receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, Unite America, and the Social Science Research Council.</span></em></p>The deadline to fund the US government is fast approaching, and it will take a Congress seemingly addicted to brinkmanship to keep the government open.Laurel Harbridge-Yong, Associate Professor of Political Science, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2168842023-11-09T13:35:47Z2023-11-09T13:35:47ZAs national political omens go, Republicans sought middle ground on abortion in Virginia − and still lost the state legislature<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558378/original/file-20231108-21-ta5abq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2219%2C421%2C3631%2C3473&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaks during a rally in Leesburg, Va., on Nov. 6, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gov-glenn-youngkin-speaks-during-a-get-out-the-vote-rally-news-photo/1779369936?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virginia-legislature-election-2023-79f9337731c25decc83b83eeb4d3e00e">election results</a> in Virginia offer Republicans across the country one key lesson before the 2024 presidential election: Revise the GOP position on the critical issue of abortion. </p>
<p>Though not on the ballot, GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin had campaigned for other GOP members on his plan to <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/virginia-gov-glenn-youngkin-bet-on-a-less-extreme-abortion-ban-and-lost">ban abortions after 15 weeks</a>, as opposed to the outright abortion ban that some Virginia politicians have promised to pass. Political observers saw Youngkin’s plan as a compromise that would limit the political fallout for the GOP from the U.S. Supreme Court’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-overturned-supreme-court.html">reversal of Roe v. Wade</a>, which constitutionally protected the right to abortion.</p>
<p>Since the spring of 2023, when Youngkin first weighed in heavily in Republican primaries for the state legislature, Youngkin and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/glenn-youngkin-united-virginia-republicans-15-week-abortion-ban-pushed-rcna119199">other GOP candidates</a> emphasized the 15-week ban in the face of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/11/08/virginia-senate-house-election-results-2023/">relentless Democratic attacks</a>.</p>
<p>But Youngkin’s hopes that his 15-week ban would spare the party further political grief <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/11/virginia-election-abortion-glenn-youngkin-democrats-republicans.html">failed miserably</a>, as Democrats secured control over both legislative branches. </p>
<p>Largely on the strength of suburban voters outside Washington, D.C., and Virginia’s capital, Richmond, Democratic candidates who focused on the abortion issue <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/us/politics/glenn-youngkin-virginia.html">captured a majority</a> of seats in the House of Delegates and retained their majority in the Senate. </p>
<h2>Abortion was the key issue</h2>
<p>In my view as a political scientist, the effectiveness of the Democratic position on abortion shouldn’t be a surprise to Virginia voters and politicians. </p>
<p>Polls, including a September 2023 <a href="https://www.umw.edu/news/2023/09/27/virginians-closely-divided-over-2023-legislative-elections-in-statewide-survey/">statewide survey</a> by the University of Mary Washington and Research America Inc., demonstrated that Democrats were far more likely to vote based on the abortion question than Republicans were.</p>
<p>In that survey, 70% of Democrats considered abortion a major factor for them in the upcoming elections, as compared with 35% of Republicans. </p>
<p>Among independents, 54% said the abortion ruling was a major factor as they considered how to approach the Virginia midterms.</p>
<h2>Straddling GOP extremes</h2>
<p>Youngkin was elected governor two years ago as a largely unknown conservative who had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/glenn-youngkin-fortune-carlyle-virginia/2021/08/02/aeeebab4-efc5-11eb-81d2-ffae0f931b8f_story.html">a lengthy business career</a> – and no legislative record. </p>
<p>In recent decades, Virginia went from a reliably Republican state in presidential elections to one where Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/virginia-results/">lost by 10 points</a> in 2020.</p>
<p>As a political novice, Youngkin successfully straddled the Republican dynamics of this purple state by trying to appeal to supporters of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement as well as moderate suburban Republicans uncomfortable with Trump’s chaotic administration and legal troubles. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle aged white man dressed in a business suit watches another white man answer a question as he gestures with his hands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558469/original/file-20231108-21-u6igh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558469/original/file-20231108-21-u6igh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558469/original/file-20231108-21-u6igh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558469/original/file-20231108-21-u6igh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558469/original/file-20231108-21-u6igh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558469/original/file-20231108-21-u6igh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558469/original/file-20231108-21-u6igh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Candidate and former Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, left, debates Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin on Sept. 28, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-virginia-gov-terry-mcauliffe-debates-republican-news-photo/1343654379?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Youngkin offered up conservative cultural war messaging – particularly on parental rights in public schools that convinced Trump voters to cast ballots for him in his 2021 race against <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/glenn-youngkin-parental-rights-education-strategy/index.html">Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe</a>. </p>
<p>But in a nod to suburban Republicans, Youngkin <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/07/politics/virginia-elections-glenn-youngkin/index.html">kept his distance</a> from the former president’s insistence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Youngkin won the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2021-elections/virginia-governor-results">2021 election</a> by two points. </p>
<p>As the first Republican to win a statewide election since 2009, his victory – and that of the newly Republican House of Delegates majority – <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/youngkins-virginia-win-offers-midterm-road-map-for-gop-warning-for-democrats-11635942003">energized the dispirited Republicans</a> lamenting the political changes in the state.</p>
<h2>Shifting political landscape</h2>
<p>To be sure, Youngkin wasn’t just another fresh face touting radically new ideas for his party. </p>
<p>His campaign’s focus on giving <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gov-youngkin-makes-final-pitch-virginia-voters-education/story?id=104678396#:%7E:text=In%202021%2C%20Youngkin%20ran%20on,could%20advance%20more%20education%20legislation.">parents more control</a> over local school districts connected with many white conservatives who were incensed that their children were being forced to read books that touched on contentious topics such as racism and sexuality.</p>
<p>Governing as a strident conservative focusing on easing COVID restrictions, cutting taxes and, above all, shifting the direction of public education, Youngkin ran into roadblocks <a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-education-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-virginia-490f552bb055df29af890b703e06e605">in the Virginia Senate</a>, where Democrats remained in the majority. </p>
<p>In one example, the Youngkin administration <a href="https://richmond.com/news/local/education/new-draft-history-standards-reorient-framing-of-race-relations/article_4504a142-7775-546d-9ea0-3c4272436a00.html">proposed a set of revisions</a> to the state’s Standards of Learning in history and social sciences. </p>
<p>Those proposed standards failed to mention Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Jr. Day and drew the ire of Black politicians and parents <a href="https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/11/17/missing-context-political-bias-some-of-critics-objections-to-virginias-new-history-standards/">who criticized the proposal</a> as “whitewashing.” </p>
<p>Youngkin’s proposals <a href="https://richmond.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/board-of-education-rejects-youngkins-proposed-revisions-to-k-12-history-standards/article_ac6dbdb1-8632-5abd-97e4-39b978982b3f.html">were later rejected</a> by the state Board of Education.</p>
<p>After two years of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/06/23/virginia-school-board-critical-race-theory-mh-orig.cnn">contentious suburban school board meetings</a> in places like Loudoun and Spotsylvania counties, Democrats had a response to Youngkin’s views on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/02/parents-right-movement-virginia-republicans">parental rights </a>. They argued that the GOP empowered extremists who want to ban books and tell lies about U.S. and Virginia history. </p>
<p>As a result, a <a href="https://www.umw.edu/news/2023/09/27/virginians-closely-divided-over-2023-legislative-elections-in-statewide-survey/">preelection statewide poll</a> showed that the education issue largely split the electorate down the middle, with roughly equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans saying that school policies were important to their choice in the Virginia midterm elections. </p>
<h2>Where does election leave Youngkin and GOP?</h2>
<p>With the failure of his plan to recast the abortion debate, Youngkin faces another loss that has significant influence on how he might achieve any legislative victories in the remaining two years of his term. </p>
<p>Democrats control the state legislature, and Youngkin’s tenure may be marked by more legislative gridlock. </p>
<p>Youngkin might want to cooperate more with Democratic lawmakers going forward, but as a longtime analyst of Virginia politics, I believe the time when an olive branch would have been most effective was two years ago.</p>
<p>Instead, Youngkin started his term by defining himself as a partisan champion, albeit not a fully pro-Trump Republican.</p>
<p>He has reached the halfway point in his tenure where neither of those positions were rewarded by voters. That’s not a good sign for a guy once touted as a possible GOP presidential candidate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216884/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen J. Farnsworth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Democrats regained the Virginia legislature in the 2023 election, and that spells trouble for Republicans seeking to win the White House in 2024.Stephen J. Farnsworth, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the UMW Center for Leadership and Media Studies, University of Mary WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2166082023-10-31T12:35:11Z2023-10-31T12:35:11Z3 reasons the House GOP is not any more dysfunctional than the Democrats − even after the prolonged speaker chaos<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556691/original/file-20231030-15-k38a3a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C9%2C6299%2C4196&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tabulating votes during one of the many ballots held by House Republicans to choose a speaker.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressSpeaker/ff27ba6e7c3444ca9fb9ec68dd187473/photo?Query=speaker%20vote%20House%20GOP&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=430&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For many observers, a key takeaway from the recent leadership struggle in the U.S. House is that Democrats <a href="https://theweek.com/politics/the-big-winner-of-the-gop-speaker-mess-might-be-hakeem-jeffries">skillfully manage</a> their caucus while Republicans are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-10-24/editorial-the-gop-is-broken-and-the-nation-is-paying-the-price-in-speaker-turmoil">uniquely</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/21/jim-jordan-house-speaker-republicans-dysfunction">dysfunctional</a>.</p>
<p>This claim is based in large part on a <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/10/27/whip-it-good-not-exactly-say-democrats-who-watched-gop-speaker-fight/">comparison</a> <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/kevin-mccarthy-republican-nancy-pelosi-speaker-emirita-rcna119495">between</a> Republicans’ perceived disloyalty in removing their speaker, Kevin McCarthy, during the current Congress and Democrats’ apparent loyalty toward their speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in previous Congresses.</p>
<p>At first glance, this seems to be a fair comparison. Both parties have dissident – or anti-establishment – factions that sometimes chafe at the compromises made by their leaders. They include “the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/11/740721823/pelosi-clashes-with-progressive-squad-as-internal-party-tensions-get-personal">Squad</a>” for Democrats and the <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/28/house-freedom-caucus-mccarthy-shutdown-letter">Freedom Caucus</a> for Republicans. </p>
<p>And both parties have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/05/narrow-majorities-in-u-s-house-have-become-more-common-but-havent-always-led-to-gridlock/">lately held narrow majorities</a> when in power, which gives potential leverage to these factions. </p>
<p>So why do Republicans seem to be having a harder time with these similar circumstances than do Democrats? Is it the relative skill of their respective leaders? Are Republicans simply more dysfunctional?</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Jks9RasAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of Congress, political parties and elections</a>. And I would argue that, other than possible differences in leadership skill or caucus dysfunction, there are three important factors that can help explain the observed differences in outcomes for the two parties:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556695/original/file-20231030-19-4o3yn9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dark-haired women in a purple jacket shakes the hand of a white-haired man in a suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556695/original/file-20231030-19-4o3yn9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556695/original/file-20231030-19-4o3yn9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556695/original/file-20231030-19-4o3yn9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556695/original/file-20231030-19-4o3yn9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556695/original/file-20231030-19-4o3yn9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556695/original/file-20231030-19-4o3yn9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556695/original/file-20231030-19-4o3yn9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, left, had a tight grip on her Democratic caucus, since they both wanted to pass the agenda of Democratic President Joe Biden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-shakes-hands-with-speaker-of-the-house-news-photo/1375645589?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. The motion-to-vacate rule</h2>
<p>When she regained the speakership in 2019, Pelosi perceived that she might face the same sort of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/sixteen-democrats-sign-letter-opposing-pelosi-speaker-n938066">internal party threats</a> to remove her as McCarthy eventually did four years later. </p>
<p>This is why she <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/01/02/681547346/democrats-announce-major-changes-to-u-s-house-rules">changed the House rules</a> to increase the threshold of support that was required to bring a formal motion to vacate the speakership, which stood then at a single lawmaker. The revised rule required the support of a majority of either party’s caucus in order to force a vote. This rule helped Pelosi keep her speakership secure even in the face of <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/15/nancy-pelosi-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-481704">internal party divisions</a> similar to those on the other side of the aisle.</p>
<p>That rule would have saved McCarthy. However, he <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64194129">negotiated it away</a> during his effort to become speaker, so that once again it took only one lawmaker to force a vote that could end up bringing down the speaker. </p>
<p>You could argue that reverting to the single-lawmaker rule is simply another example of inferior strategic thinking by GOP leadership. But I believe it is possible that no Republican candidate could have avoided making this concession. After all, McCarthy first tried offering only a partial change – agreeing to lower the threshold <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mccarthy-motion-to-vacate-rule-speaker/">down to five</a> – but still could not secure the votes he needed until finally agreeing to a threshold of one. </p>
<h2>2. Which party is in the White House</h2>
<p>During the previous Congress, the House majority – Democrats – was from the same party as the sitting president, Joe Biden. The members of the president’s party in the House knew that if the chamber got sidetracked with a speakership fight, their president’s agenda would also be sidetracked. </p>
<p>In turn, this could <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S002238160808">diminish the president’s public approval ratings</a>. </p>
<p>Since Biden is the public face of the Democratic party, when his approval dips, this <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2111273">harms the relative electoral prospects</a> of all candidates running for reelection under his party’s label. So, Democrats had an incentive to cooperate, for fear of losing their own seats and their party’s majority in Congress.</p>
<p>In contrast, during the current Congress, the Republican majority faces a president from the opposite party. This circumstance can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381608080961">create an incentive</a> for the majority party to prevent the president from achieving legislative successes. Poor ratings for Biden could help Republicans running for reelection. In this context, a speakership fight that sidetracks legislation makes more sense from the party’s perspective: It could even help the party in the next election.</p>
<h2>3. Ideology</h2>
<p>Finally, dissidents in the Republican Party have greater leverage than their Democratic counterparts based on their ideas about policy and governing. </p>
<p>Democrats generally agree that a functioning government is needed to help <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/franklin-delano-roosevelt-and-the-new-deal/">solve societal problems</a>. So, dissident factions in the Democratic Party are typically unwilling to shut down government operations indefinitely in order to extract concessions from their leadership.</p>
<p>In contrast, Republicans are more likely to believe, as President Reagan <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IlcDvXaUCw">famously stated</a>, that “government IS the problem.” This means that dissident factions in the Republican Party can much more credibly threaten to indefinitely <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/21/government-shutdown-latest-spending-vote-mccarthy-republicans">halt government operations</a> – doing so does not conflict as much with their policy goals. In turn, the fact that they have less incentive to drop their obstruction gives them more leverage over their party’s leadership.</p>
<h2>It’s more complicated than you think</h2>
<p>Would Republicans have moved to vacate the speakership if Donald Trump were in the White House and eager to pass his conservative legislative agenda? Would Pelosi have survived without changing the rules? </p>
<p>You can never know the answers to these questions for certain. But thinking about these hypothetical situations helps illustrate that political context matters. How members of a party will behave in a given situation is affected by many factors, including congressional rules, election pressures and policy preferences. Sometimes, these factors simply align in a way that makes it hard to be the speaker.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216608/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David R. Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the wake of the three-week internal GOP battle to choose a speaker, a scholar of Congress says that what looks like dysfunction is actually something else.David R. Jones, Professor of Political Science, Baruch College, CUNYLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2163092023-10-31T12:34:44Z2023-10-31T12:34:44ZAre journalists serving Virginia’s voters well? Election could offer insights on media on national level<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556325/original/file-20231027-21-u501nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=826%2C71%2C5164%2C3907&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin gives a thumbs-up during an Economic Club of Washington event on Sept. 26, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/virginia-governor-glenn-youngkin-gives-a-thumbs-up-during-news-photo/1702783557">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Virginia holds elections on Nov. 7, 2023, to fill <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virginia-election-youngkin-e5ba1b4b0349ba7401722ab829b22f02">all 140 seats</a> in the state legislature, the results will likely offer insights on the nation’s political pulse. Voters’ preferences for Democrats or Republicans may well reflect how they feel about Joe Biden or Donald Trump – and about key issues such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/us/politics/abortion-virginia-republicans-youngkin.html">abortion</a>, the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/538/virginias-legislative-contests-important-races-2023/story?id=104299286">economy</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/10/22/virginia-education-poll-results/">public education</a>.</p>
<p>The election also will hold important lessons for the nation’s journalists as they gear up for the 2024 presidential race. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://robertson.vcu.edu/directory/south.html">journalism professor</a> and diligent voter in Virginia, I’ve been closely following the news about the state’s upcoming elections. Much of the reporting has provided readers with stories about candidates’ qualifications and positions on critical issues – the kind of information voters need to cast their ballots.</p>
<p>But I also have seen articles that may discourage voting or undermine the democratic process. Those stories tend to <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/09/11/house-candidate-susanna-gibson-performed-sex-acts-on-webcam-for-tips/">hype fleeting scandals</a> and mostly serve to generate clicks on social media. </p>
<p>What I have learned in my years studying the role of journalism in civic discussion is that democracies are best served when media coverage focuses on issues that affect society and people’s everyday lives and minimizes “horse race” reporting that obsesses over who is ahead in opinion surveys or fundraising. </p>
<h2>At stake in Virginia</h2>
<p>Journalism matters because elections have consequences. </p>
<p>Virginia is the only Southern state that has not put new restrictions on abortion since the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-overturned-supreme-court.html">U.S. Supreme Court</a> overturned Roe v. Wade. The legislative elections probably will determine whether abortions remain <a href="https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacodefull/title18.2/chapter4/article9/">legal in Virginia through the second trimester</a>, or 26 weeks, of a pregnancy. </p>
<p>Virginia’s off-year elections carry national significance because the state is a deep shade of <a href="https://fredericksburg.com/news/local/government-politics/umw-poll-shows-virginia-has-rapidly-returned-to-purple-state-status/article_f46bd2ca-5e0e-11ee-9174-ff1be1fe1493.html">purple</a>. </p>
<p>Virginians <a href="https://rollcall.com/2021/11/16/so-what-color-is-virginia-now/">favored Democrats</a> in the past four presidential contests, but Republicans swept all three statewide races in 2021. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white woman with blonde hair gestures with her hands as she stands in the middle of a crowd of people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556335/original/file-20231027-25-zqb7mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Virginia state Senate candidate Russet Perry, a Democrat, speaks to campaign volunteers on Oct. 8, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/leesburg-virginia-virginia-state-senate-candidate-russet-news-photo/1730513107?adppopup=true">Pete Marovich For The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the 2023 legislative session, Democrats had a 22-18 majority in the Virginia Senate, and Republicans had a 52-48 majority in the state House of Delegates. Because of redistricting and retirements, there are 11 open seats in the Senate and 33 in the House. </p>
<p>Gov. Glenn Youngkin and GOP donors have <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gov-glenn-youngkin-courts-donors-ahead-high-stakes/story?id=104095977">poured money</a> and political capital into helping Virginia Republicans capture both chambers in order to advance his legislative agenda – and possibly <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/glenn-youngkin-anti-trump-donors-2024-presidential-run/">his presidential ambitions</a>. </p>
<p>As a swing state, Virginia is the testing ground for political parties’ future campaign strategies. </p>
<p>For instance, Virginia’s Republican legislative candidates have <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/will-voters-buy-youngkins-15-week-abortion-ban-gambit.html">echoed Youngkin’s call</a> to prohibit abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy except in cases of rape or incest or to save the mother’s life.</p>
<p>Youngkin <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/25/youngkin-abortion-15-week-elections/">portrays that limit</a> as “reasonable” and “common sense” – an alternative to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html">outright bans</a> that have drawn voter backlash in other states. But Democrats <a href="https://www.virginiamercury.com/2023/10/26/virginia-abortion-battle-could-come-down-to-how-voters-feel-about-the-word-ban/">have called</a> the 15-week proposal <a href="https://richmond.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/youngkins-pac-sets-1-4-million-ad-push-on-abortion-issue/article_2256a7ce-678c-11ee-93e8-1b49cbbcb646.html">a sign</a> that Republicans will impose stricter measures on abortion if they win control of the General Assembly. </p>
<p>Indeed, some Republican candidates say <a href="https://vademocrats.org/news/listen-swing-district-va-gop-candidate-pledges-support-for-100-abortion-ban/">their ultimate goal</a> is to ban all abortions, and Youngkin <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/29/youngkin-abortion-life-conception/">told an anti-abortion group in 2022</a>, “Any bill that comes to my desk I will sign happily and gleefully in order to protect life.”</p>
<h2>Informing the citizenry</h2>
<p>It’s my belief that the most useful news stories for voters are those that drill deep into candidates’ positions on pressing public policies.</p>
<p>What are they saying now, and what have they said in the past? Do they send different messages to different audiences? Have they voted or taken other actions on the issue? Have they courted endorsements, contributions and other support from groups with a vested interest in the matter?</p>
<p>Less useful are stories that treat politics as a competitive sport and fixate on who’s up or down in the polls or in campaign donations. Such “<a href="https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2022/05/09/the-consequences-of-horse-race-reporting-rich-barlow">horse race</a>” journalism may appeal to political junkies, but <a href="https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/horse-race-reporting-election/">research shows</a> that it leaves most people cynical, poorly informed and less likely to vote.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman delivers a speech as stands behind a lectern surrounded by American flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556331/original/file-20231027-27-8ediim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley speaks on abortion in Virginia on April 25, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-hopeful-nikki-haley-speaks-on-news-photo/1252167577?adppopup=true">Stefani ReynoldsAFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Further complicating election coverage is the blizzard of numbers found in polls and surveys that can make people feel that their votes won’t matter. Worse, journalists frequently misinterpret or oversimplify data – ignoring <a href="https://journalistsresource.org/media/margin-error-journalists-surveys-polls/">such factors</a> as the margin of error or methodology. </p>
<p>For example, several news organizations cited a <a href="https://www.wric.com/news/politics/virginians-prefer-youngkin-over-biden-in-hypothetical-presidential-matchup-poll-shows/">Virginia Commonwealth University poll</a> and reported that in a hypothetical presidential matchup, Virginians would favor Youngkin over Biden, 44% to 37%. </p>
<p>But the survey’s margin of error was <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jjg0fNOrXLWovi-9UgCJGgyn3fFt9FGD/view">about 5.5 percentage points</a>. That means Youngkin’s support could have been as low as 38.5% and Biden’s as high as 42.5% – making the results too close to call.</p>
<p>Also problematic are salacious stories like the ones about <a href="https://www.susannagibson.com/">Susanna Gibson</a>, the Democratic Virginia House candidate who performed in <a href="https://apnews.com/article/susanna-gibson-virginia-house-of-delegates-sex-acts-9e0fa844a3ba176f79109f7393073454">livestreamed sex shows</a> with her husband.</p>
<p>In a competitive media environment driven by social networking, it is hard for journalists to ignore such scandals. But reporters should be honest about the story’s genesis – instead of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/09/11/susanna-gibson-sex-website-virginia-candidate/">shielding the identity</a> of the Republican operative who tipped them off. </p>
<p>And some outlets seized any opportunity to revisit the controversy, no matter how trivial the <a href="https://themessenger.com/politics/virginia-dem-susanna-gibson-dips-in-polls-following-sex-show-scandal">news peg</a>.</p>
<p>A final step journalists can take in covering elections is to unpack the shorthand that politicians employ to curry votes. Candidates routinely use focus group-tested catchphrases that sound as appealing as apple pie but obscure far-reaching implications.</p>
<p>For example, when Democrats promote “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/virginia-election-prosecutors-primary-f3322cfed456ffbd7ba9d50f0b9d511a">criminal justice reform</a>,” do they mean eliminating cash bail even for people accused of violent crimes? </p>
<p>And when Republicans tout “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/03/24/glenn-youngkin-2024-parental-rights/11487311002/">parental rights</a>,” would they allow a minority of vocal parents to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/09/28/virginia-frequent-school-book-challenger-spotsylvania/">dictate the school curriculum</a> for all students?</p>
<p>After Virginia’s election, the focus of the national political coverage will turn to the 2024 presidential race – and what happens in Virginia may not stay in Virginia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216309/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeff South does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With the balance of political power at stake in the Virginia legislature, voters in this key swing state may reveal clues for the 2024 presidential election.Jeff South, Associate professor emeritus, Journalism, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164012023-10-25T20:02:19Z2023-10-25T20:02:19ZNew House Speaker Mike Johnson leads a GOP majority weakened by decades of declining party authority<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555920/original/file-20231025-21-dtjqm0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=42%2C42%2C5668%2C3810&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">House Republicans applaud as U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, center, is elected the new speaker of the House on Oct. 25, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/house-republicans-applaud-as-u-s-rep-mike-johnson-is-news-photo/1756417576?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After the House of Representatives took the unprecedented step on Oct. 3, 2023, of removing its own speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/03/us/politics/mccarthy-house-speaker-vote-live.html">with eight Republicans joining all 208 voting Democrats to</a> “vacate the chair,” what followed was weeks of uncertainty. Until <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/us/politics/house-speaker-election.html">conservative Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson</a> was elected speaker of the House on Oct. 25, no candidate had been able to secure the necessary number of Republicans to win a vote on the House floor. And without an elected speaker, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/gops-house-paralysis-is-a-crisis-in-a-time-of-crises-216204">chamber was effectively stuck</a>.</p>
<p>The two proximate reasons for the GOP’s struggle to pick and keep a speaker are that it is internally divided and its majority in the House is small. But as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rzgJTxIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholar of American politics</a>, I believe the party’s problems also stem from long-term pressures that have made it hard for both parties in Congress to exercise the kind of authority they need to govern.</p>
<h2>The authority of parties</h2>
<p>An effective legislative party exercises four kinds of authority. The first is the ability to choose the chamber’s top leader and write the chamber’s rules – which both form part of what political scientists call <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691118123/fighting-for-the-speakership">organizational authority</a>. </p>
<p>The second kind is <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/setting-the-agenda/C3B6AB4BAD51BDEE406120597A460C16">procedural authority</a>, or the ability to set the legislative agenda and decide which bills come to the floor for a vote.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle aged white dressed in a business suit rests his hands on a lectern as he stands in front of two other white men" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555896/original/file-20231025-27-poazjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy stands in front of Republican House members Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise in this 2019 photograph.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/house-minority-leader-rep-kevin-mccarthy-speaks-as-rep-jim-news-photo/1177076170?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The third type of authority is over policy – being able to pass the party’s desired bills and amendments on the floor.</p>
<p>Finally, parties have electoral authority, meaning they help their members get reelected and help challengers beat incumbents from the other party.</p>
<p>All four kinds of authority are important, but the first two are especially so. Without them, the minority party in the House could choose the speaker, write the chamber’s rules in its favor and bring only the bills it prefers to the chamber floor.</p>
<h2>Before the 1990s: Stronger parties</h2>
<p>From the 1970s through the mid-1990s, as the House Democratic Party – the majority party at the time – became more liberal, its members worked to expand the party’s authority in all four dimensions, hoping to marginalize Republicans and conservative Democrats.</p>
<p>As a result, minority party Republicans had fewer and fewer chances to bring bills and amendments to the floor, and when they did, they <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo3638205.html">usually lost to more liberal proposals </a>. Democrats’ election fundraising also grew rapidly, and they gave more attention to recruiting strong candidates to run for office.</p>
<p>Republicans adopted these tactics after they became the majority party in the House in 1995 and elected <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700633265/">Newt Gingrich</a> as speaker. <a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/9270/leading-representatives">Under Gingrich’s leadership</a>, the GOP pushed through a package of major conservative bills in the first 100 days of the new Congress, and Democrats were mostly powerless to stop them.</p>
<h2>From the 1990s to today: Weakening parties</h2>
<p>Though Republicans appeared to have a monopoly on power in the House in 1995, their rise to the majority also coincided with significant changes in the political environment that would threaten the authority of both parties.</p>
<p>For one thing, congressional elections became more competitive, <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo24732099.html">giving the minority little incentive</a> to help the majority govern. <a href="https://history.house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/Party-Divisions/">Smaller margins in the House between the two parties</a> gave the majority party less leeway to allow for defections on floor votes. And new legislators were elected to Congress who were skeptical of leaders and the tradition of party loyalty.</p>
<p>The most obvious sign of fraying party authority was a new willingness of lawmakers, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3638134">starting in the mid-1990s</a>, to vote against their own party’s nominee for speaker. In 2019, Democrat Nancy Pelosi had to engage in <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3638134">intense backroom negotiations</a> to get elected speaker; in January 2023, the House went through <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/politics/house-speaker-vote-mccarthy.html">15 rounds of balloting</a> before selecting McCarthy as speaker.</p>
<p>In recent years, other forces have further weakened the authority of the House Republican Party in particular. These include the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/08/five-facts-about-fox-news/">rise of Fox News as the dominant voice of conservatism</a> and the emergence of <a href="https://www.cpi.org/">outside groups</a> that lobby GOP lawmakers to avoid compromise and act aggressively on behalf of conservative policies.</p>
<p>The election of Donald Trump in 2016 accelerated this trend by turning the <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/donald-trump-working-class-voters-219231">Republican Party’s base toward angry populism</a> and encouraging some incumbents to openly defy their party in the hopes of tapping into that base. </p>
<p>It also encouraged other conservative mavericks to run for Congress, such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/us/politics/lauren-boebert-colorado-elected.html">Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado</a>, <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2023/01/06/lauren-boebert-kevin-mccarthy-speaker-votes/">who opposed McCarthy’s initial selection as speaker</a> or who otherwise <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/01/politics/mccarthy-government-spending-fight/index.html">made it hard for him to lead the party</a>.</p>
<h2>What comes next?</h2>
<p>The current situation has created a serious <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199670840.001.0001/acref-9780199670840-e-223">collective action problem</a> for the GOP, meaning that too many lawmakers think only about their own political needs, even at the risk of hurting the party as a whole. Polls show that the stalemate over choosing a speaker was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/10/22/americans-house-elect-speaker-poll/71270869007/">damaging to the Republican Party’s reputation</a>. But so many party members believe they will win the support of conservative voters in their districts or gain more coverage on right-wing media by being intransigent that, until Johnson’s election, a speaker candidate had yet to unite the GOP over three weeks of effort. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle aged white man wearing eyeglasses is surrounded by television cameras and reporters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555900/original/file-20231025-18-eid4yg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana arrives for a House Republican meeting and vote on a new speaker of the House on Oct. 24, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/representative-mike-johnson-arrives-for-a-house-republican-news-photo/1744079738?adppopup=true">Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>It’s not just conservative populists who are undermining the party’s authority. Even though Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, had been nominated by the party to be McCarthy’s replacement, he gave up after losing three rounds of balloting on the floor. That was thanks to the opposition of institutionally minded Republicans and <a href="https://theconversation.com/house-speaker-paralysis-is-confusing-a-political-scientist-explains-whats-happening-215947">Republicans from swing districts</a>.</p>
<p>The new speaker, despite having been able to pull together his GOP colleagues, will face the same challenges that McCarthy did. The party’s majority will still be small, it will still be divided, and the same forces that have weakened their party’s authority will remain in place.</p>
<p>It may thus take changes in the broader political environment – along with an election that either costs the GOP its majority or gives it a larger, more cohesive majority – for the House Republicans to be able to rebuild their collective authority and act as a cohesive and effective legislative party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Green does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The problems faced by the House GOP in choosing a new speaker aren’t particular to Republicans. They’re a reflection of larger problems that have afflicted both parties in Congress.Matthew Green, Professor of Politics, Catholic University of AmericaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2162042023-10-23T18:59:36Z2023-10-23T18:59:36ZGOP’s House paralysis is a crisis in a time of crises<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555378/original/file-20231023-25-n0skbs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C0%2C4341%2C2903&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's trouble under the U.S. Capitol dome. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/dark-government-royalty-free-image/1181743541?phrase=US+house+of+representatives&adppopup=true"> iStock / Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/23/1207933406/the-house-is-without-a-speaker-nearly-3-weeks-after-kevin-mccarthy-was-ousted">House Republicans fired one leader</a>, Kevin McCarthy, and have spent almost three weeks trying unsuccessfully to choose another to succeed him as speaker of the House. That’s left the U.S. House of Representatives <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/21/politics/house-speaker-race-candidates/index.html">unable to do its work</a>, paralyzing the entire legislative branch of government, because the Senate can’t pass legislation without a functioning House. </p>
<p>Is this a “constitutional crisis?” Or something less significant?</p>
<p>The speaker of the House of Representatives is <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-speaker-of-the-house-do-heres-what-kevin-mccarthys-successor-will-have-for-a-job-94884">a powerful position with an outsized role in lawmaking</a>. According to the rules of the House, the speaker is “<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-HPRACTICE-108/html/GPO-HPRACTICE-108-35.htm">the presiding officer of the House and is charged</a> <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-HPRACTICE-108/html/GPO-HPRACTICE-108-35.htm">with numerous duties and responsibilities by law and by the House rules</a>.” </p>
<p>The speaker calls the House to order, refers bills to committees, appoints committee members, rules on points of order and recognizes members on the floor. These duties and responsibilities keep the House engaged in considering and passing bills. </p>
<p>In short, the speaker is critical to the administration of House business. Under the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/president-pro-tempore/presidential-succession-act.htm">Presidential Succession Act</a>, passed to supplement Article 2 of the Constitution, the speaker also stands <a href="https://www.usa.gov/presidential-succession">second</a> in line to the presidency, after the vice president, in the event of the president’s incapacity.</p>
<p>For now, the House is presided over by a temporary speaker, U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from North Carolina, but scholars and experts are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/04/us/politics/patrick-mchenry-interim-speaker.html">divided about whether the House rules</a> allow the person in that role to fulfill all the critical duties of the speakership. Because the situation is unprecedented and because the rules are ambiguous, <a href="https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/10/19/congress/jordans-new-plan-00122465">McHenry appears reluctant to exercise</a> anything other than the minimal powers necessary to elect a new speaker.</p>
<p>Thus the House remains in limbo, with action needed as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/30/government-shutdown-live-updates-congress-faces-funding-deadline.html">budget deadlines loom</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-10-22/israel-strikes-gaza-syria-and-west-bank-as-war-against-hamas-threatens-to-ignite-other-fronts">a war between Israel and Hamas threatens to spread</a> to other fronts. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stefanie-Lindquist-2">As a scholar of both constitutional law and politics</a>, I believe the U.S. could be viewed as in constitutional crisis – a crisis that, if it does not end, could provoke larger crises ahead.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An empty leather chair behind a lectern and in front of an American flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555380/original/file-20231023-15-s57hlb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The chair for the speaker of the House remains empty at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-chair-for-the-speaker-of-the-house-remains-empty-as-news-photo/1746583947?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>What is a “constitutional crisis”?</h2>
<p>The term “constitutional crisis” is largely undefined, although <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/5/16/18617661/donald-trump-congress-constitutional-crisis">scholars generally agree on a few</a> of its characteristics. </p>
<p>One common factor in most historical events described as constitutional crises is that constitutionally mandated processes for resolving conflict break down or have no ready answers. Typically, constitutional crises emerge when the legislature and the president find themselves in conflict over the legality or wisdom of a particular action or policy. </p>
<p>When the legislature and the president reach such an impasse, one or the other of the branches could exercise force to achieve its preferred outcome. </p>
<p>This applies not only to the U.S. but other countries as well. In the case of Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s confrontation with the Russian Parliament <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-10-04/yeltsin-shelled-russian-parliament-25-years-ago-us-praised-superb-handling">over the power of the presidency</a> in 1993, for example, Yeltsin deployed the Russian military to attack the Parliament and arrest its members. </p>
<p>In the U.S. in 1832 and 1833, conflict between the federal and state governments led President Andrew Jackson to threaten military force to ensure that federal law would be followed in South Carolina during the so-called “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/nullification-crisis">nullification crisis</a>.” In that crisis, South Carolina claimed that a state could unilaterally block a federal law imposing tariffs on imports. Believing that South Carolina’s actions threatened the union and the constitutional order, Jackson proposed to send federal troops to the state to collect the tariffs. This threat of force ultimately led to South Carolina’s capitulation. </p>
<p>Clearly, the Republican standoff in Congress does not rise to the level of a crisis that might involve military force. Yet to the extent that a constitutional crisis involves the paralysis of government machinery without a readily available solution under the Constitution, the current situation in the House could qualify. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white haired man in a gray suit and bow tie sits and listens." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555382/original/file-20231023-15-lv228c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">U.S. Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry listens as the House of Representatives votes for a third time on whether to elevate Rep. Jim Jordan to Speaker of the House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-pro-tempore-rep-patrick-mchenry-listens-as-the-news-photo/1746641345?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Paralyzed Congress</h2>
<p>Because the speaker is a constitutionally mandated office whose occupant is second in line for the presidency, the role is part of the U.S. constitutional machinery. The Constitution clearly contemplates that a speaker will lead the House, although it does not define their duties, which are determined by the House’s own rules. Those rules have evolved over time to elevate the speaker’s role as central to the lawmaking functions of Congress. And without a speaker, it is not clear that Congress can fulfill its constitutional functions. At the same time, no constitutional remedy exists to solve the current impasse.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-legislative-branch/">To enact legislation</a>, both chambers in Congress must agree on statutory language and submit the bill to the president for his approval. </p>
<p>Without the House, however, Congress will be unable to fund the federal government, which requires yearly budgetary authorization from Congress for its funding. As the nation’s largest employer, the federal government’s failure to pay its employees’ wages will cause financial disruption to millions, even if retroactive <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12251">pay is available afterward</a>. </p>
<p>Critical regulatory agencies that keep water clean, air breathable, roads and bridges safe and the country’s financial system operating fairly and effectively could be stalled in meeting their legal duties to the nation. </p>
<p>Other pressing national concerns, such as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/22/house-speaker-candidates-running/">opioid crisis</a>, will continue without federal legislation to address them. Efforts to support Ukraine and Israel in their battles against Russia and Hamas will be stymied. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/21/politics/house-speaker-race-candidates/index.html">paralyzed federal government paralyzes the nation</a>, with potentially dire national and global consequences to the economy, the environment and U.S. foreign policy. The absence of a speaker – a single individual but the linchpin in Congress – could thus produce a dangerous crisis in our constitutional democracy. </p>
<p>The longer this impasse continues, the greater the threat to the constitutional order.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216204/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefanie Lindquist does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The absence of a speaker of the House − a single individual but the linchpin in Congress − could produce a dangerous crisis in America’s constitutional democracy.Stefanie Lindquist, Foundation Professor of Law and Political Science, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2139712023-10-03T12:34:09Z2023-10-03T12:34:09ZReagan wouldn’t recognize Trump-style ‘conservatism’ – a look at how the GOP has changed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550741/original/file-20230927-19-66bw79.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C8%2C5459%2C3648&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mitt Romney, left, represents an old-fashioned GOP conservatism. Donald Trump, right, doesn't − and Romney is leaving politics.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-elect-donald-trump-gives-a-thumbs-up-as-mitt-news-photo/624809914?adppopup=true">Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Mitt Romney announced his intended retirement from the U.S. Senate on Sept. 13, 2023, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/mitt-romney-retiring-senate-trump-mcconnell/675306/">the Atlantic</a> published an excerpt from his upcoming biography, in which the 2012 Republican presidential nominee told author McKay Coppins, “A very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.” </p>
<p>This claim would have been startling 15 years ago. For decades, the Republican Party has been the party of conservatism and a champion for the Constitution.</p>
<p>Romney is clear that Donald Trump, who leads what he calls a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BujDsieHkZE">“populist” and “demagogic” portion of the party</a>, is to blame. And Romney is not the only concerned Republican. </p>
<p>Former Vice President Mike Pence, now running for the GOP presidential nomination, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/06/1197887694/mike-pence-donald-trump-populism-conservatism-free-market-republican-party">recently asked a crowd</a> at a campaign event, “Will we be the party of conservatism, or will we follow the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles?” </p>
<p>What are the conservative principles Romney and Pence spoke about? And what has happened to them since Trump’s rise?</p>
<p>As a political scientist, I spent the past five years researching <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12664">ideological identity</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X221112395">Trump’s effect on conservatism</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/abs/adversaries-or-allies-donald-trumps-republican-support-in-congress/1FA48BEAE419AD8348B3A2BB5A93CA5E">on the Republican Party</a>. </p>
<p>Defining “conservatism” is complicated. It has taken many forms over the course of U.S. history. It <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-reactionary-mind-9780190692001?cc=us&lang=en&">reinvents itself over time</a>. But a main tenet was summed up by President Ronald Reagan in his <a href="https://www.reaganfoundation.org/ronald-reagan/reagan-quotes-speeches/farewell-address-to-the-nation-1/">1989 farewell address to the nation</a>: “There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”</p>
<p>I focus here on features of what’s called “principled conservatism,” the cohesive belief system that emphasizes liberty and the status quo. </p>
<p>Here is a short inventory of these ideals and how they were violated in recent years. This is not an exhaustive list – but it captures much of Reagan’s style of conservatism, which has been the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2023/09/26/reagan-gop-presidential-candidates/">touchstone for most Republican presidential candidates until recently</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550743/original/file-20230927-17-tqnr4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and red tie posing in front of three American flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550743/original/file-20230927-17-tqnr4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550743/original/file-20230927-17-tqnr4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550743/original/file-20230927-17-tqnr4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550743/original/file-20230927-17-tqnr4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550743/original/file-20230927-17-tqnr4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550743/original/file-20230927-17-tqnr4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550743/original/file-20230927-17-tqnr4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Former Vice President Mike Pence, now a GOP presidential candidate, has asked, ‘Will we be the party of conservatism, or will we follow the siren song of populism?’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-former-vice-president-news-photo/1683396110?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>The Constitution and limited government protect liberty</h2>
<p>Outspoken conservatives <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/ronald-reagan-a-time-for-choosing-speech-defining-statement-modern-conservatism/">often emphasize the importance of the Constitution</a>, which established laws to protect the liberty of citizens. </p>
<p>First, the Constitution laid the groundwork for federalism, a system where <a href="https://theconversation.com/georgias-indictment-of-trump-is-a-confirmation-of-states-rights-a-favorite-cause-of-republicans-since-reagan-210610">local governments hold some level of power</a> to ensure the national government does not have absolute control. This is where the <a href="https://theconversation.com/georgias-indictment-of-trump-is-a-confirmation-of-states-rights-a-favorite-cause-of-republicans-since-reagan-210610">conservative phrase “states’ rights”</a> comes from. </p>
<p>Second, the Constitution <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/separation_of_powers_0">established checks and balances</a> between the three branches of government to prevent any one of them from abusing power. </p>
<p>These safeguards against tyranny are the beating heart of conservative thought.</p>
<p>But when Trump, <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/represent/members/trump-texas-amicus-house-members">backed by 126 Republican legislators</a> in Congress, tried to overturn election results of key states in 2020, it <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/10/politics/conservatives-states-rights/index.html">was seen as a violation of states’ rights</a> by conservative lawyers and a handful of Republican legislators. When only 17 Republicans <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/14/956621191/these-are-the-10-republicans-who-voted-to-impeach-trump">voted to impeach</a> <a href="https://rollcall.com/2021/02/13/trump-acquitted/">or convict Trump</a> for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, it gave the appearance that the abuse of power can go unchecked at the federal level. </p>
<h2>Government intervention should be restrained</h2>
<p>Since principled conservatism is averse to an overly active, centralized government, it typically opposes federal intervention in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDaFwokiFF0">business, increased spending, higher taxes, public programs</a> and <a href="https://www.heritage.org/agriculture/commentary/it-not-conservative-support-farm-subsidies-heres-where-conservative-icons">subsidies</a>. </p>
<p>But using the bully pulpit and his presidential powers, Trump threatened retaliation against companies <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-threatens-consequences-for-us-firms-that-relocate-offshore/2016/12/01/a2429330-b7e4-11e6-959c-172c82123976_story.html">that moved jobs overseas</a>, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump">increased the national debt</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/us/politics/trump-china-tariffs-trade.html">instigated trade wars by raising tariffs</a> and gave <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/us/politics/trump-farmers-subsidies.html">subsidies to farmers</a> who were harmed in the trade war process. These behaviors and policies also fly in the face of conservative principles.</p>
<p>Though Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley still considers Republicans to be <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-money/2019/05/16/grassley-on-what-trump-really-believes-on-trade-437149">“a party of free trade,”</a> Trump’s trade war deviated from past GOP policies – with some exceptions – and was mostly met with <a href="https://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan-institute/publications/is-the-gop-still-the-party-of-free-trade/">“statements of discomfort</a>.”</p>
<h2>Institutions can support stable civic life</h2>
<p>In addition to protecting limited government and free markets, conservatism strives to preserve American institutions such as the military and the justice system, in the belief that they help organize and maintain the stability of civic life.</p>
<p>Yet Trump’s rhetoric persistently attacked <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/business/trump-calls-the-news-media-the-enemy-of-the-people.html">the free press</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/11/trump-mar-a-lago-witch-hunt-fbi-doj-safety">the Department of Justice, the FBI</a> – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/opinion/trump-fbi-conservative.html">often considered a conservative organization</a> – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/09/us/politics/trump-military.html">military leadership</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/us/politics/trump-election-lies-fact-check.html">the integrity of the electoral system</a>. Some of these organizations enforce justice and hold government accountable through free speech, ideals that are embedded in the conservative principles <a href="https://mikejohnson.house.gov/7-core-principles-of-conservatism/">laid out by Republican Rep. Mike Johnson</a> for the Republican Study Committee in 2018.</p>
<h2>Conservatives in name only?</h2>
<p>Is Donald Trump solely to blame for the unraveling of American conservative ideals? </p>
<p>Yes and no. One the one hand, he is responsible for implementing anti-conservative policies like trade wars, eroding trust in institutions through his rhetoric and inspiring candidates to run for office in his image. </p>
<p>However, Trump is also a product of his voter base. He loses power without them and therefore often reflects what they want. What do they want, though? Here’s where it’s handy to know some political science.</p>
<p>One of the most <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08913810608443650">cited findings in political psychology</a> is that the average American lacks “ideological sophistication.” Most people simply don’t structure their politics around an abstract attitude about the proper role of government. This includes many Americans <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ideology-in-america/F22017ACF5F39C3739E7C0E8D89501F8">who call themselves “conservatives</a>.” </p>
<p>Instead, people often form preferences by asking, “How will this policy or person help me and people who are like me? How will this <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/white-identity-politics/5C330931FF4CF246FCA043AB14F5C626">protect the status of my group</a>?” Positive feelings toward one’s own group and positive – or negative – feelings toward other demographic groups <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08913810608443657">hold real influence</a> over <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/715072">political orientations</a>. This is the stuff that motivates people politically – consequently, there has been a disconnect between the conservative ideals promoted by elites and the attitudes of their voter base. </p>
<p>You may hear conservative principles mentioned sporadically as the 2024 election nears. But until Republican voters reward politicians who embody them, it is unlikely actual conservative ideals do – or will – guide politics on the right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213971/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karyn Amira does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Republicans Mike Pence and Mitt Romney both spoke recently about the conservative ideals that animate their politics − and which Donald Trump has violated. Do voters care?Karyn Amira, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of CharlestonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2134332023-09-28T05:39:02Z2023-09-28T05:39:02ZIn fractious debate, GOP candidates find common ground on cause of inflation woes and need for school choice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550803/original/file-20230928-19-kzxcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2634%2C1825&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy debate the finer points.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidates-florida-gov-ron-desantis-news-photo/1705132466?adppopup=true">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>It was a night in which even “<a href="https://www.reaganfoundation.org/education/virtual-learning-hub/the-great-communicator/">the great communicator</a>” himself may have struggled to be heard.</em></p>
<p><em>At the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California on Sept. 27, 2023, seven Republican candidates looking to become the leading challenger to the absent GOP front-runner Donald Trump <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/27/1201848640/second-republican-debate-california">interrupted, cross-talked and bickered</a> – often to the exasperation of the presidential debate moderators.</em></p>
<p><em>And yet, between the heated exchanges, important economic and business issues were discussed – from national debt and government shutdowns to labor disputes and even school choice. One thing the candidates agreed on: They aren’t fans of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/2023/08/15/what-is-bidenomics-president-biden-s-economic-philosophy-explained/e9ba8398-3b9b-11ee-aefd-40c039a855ba_story.html">Bidenomics</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Listening in for The Conversation were economists <a href="https://www.gonzaga.edu/school-of-business-administration/faculty/detail/herzogr">Ryan Herzog</a> of Gonzaga University and University of Tennessee’s <a href="https://web.utk.edu/%7Eccarrut1/">Celeste K. Carruthers</a>. Here are their main takeaways from the debate.</em></p>
<h2>Inflation talk assigns blame, falls flat on solutions</h2>
<p><strong>Ryan Herzog, Gonzaga University</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/official-polls/fox-news-poll-voters-white-house-doing-more-harm-than-good-inflation">most recent Fox News survey</a> showed that 91% of Americans are worried about inflation and 80% about rising housing costs. I tuned into the second GOP debate hoping to hear how the candidates would solve these problems. I was left disappointed. </p>
<p>Not a single candidate mentioned rising housing costs, and few even acknowledged inflation. Given how much the issue has dominated the news, I assumed the candidates would mention it more than the <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/08/24/transcript-gop-presidential-hopefuls-debate-in-milwaukee">eight times</a> they did in the prior debate. I was wrong. </p>
<p>First, let’s check some inflation facts. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley claimed that the average household is spending US$7,000 more per year on groceries and gas because of inflation. I believe she also meant to include <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/11/economy/inflation-rate-spending/index.html">housing costs</a>. The latest data shows the annual inflation for food at home – as opposed to restaurant meals – is rising less than 3% per year. While that’s up 24% <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=19mVB">since the start of the pandemic</a>, it’s far below what you’d need for an increase of nearly $600 per month. </p>
<p>Next, former Vice President Mike Pence said that recent wage gains have not kept up with inflation. But according to the most recent data, average wage growth has actually <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/01/business/economy/wage-growth-inflation.html">outpaced inflation</a>. Indeed, workers in lower-wage industries that are seeing labor shortages, such as the leisure and hospitality sector, have seen <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/29/low-income-wages-employment-00097135">very substantial pay increases</a>. </p>
<p>Nearly every candidate blamed inflation on <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/government-spending-fuels-inflation-covid-relief-pandemic-debt-federal-reserve-stimulus-powell-biden-stagflation-11645202057">excessive federal spending</a>. Under Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the total level of U.S. government debt increased by nearly $8 trillion and $4.5 trillion, <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=18YJx">respectively</a>. As expected, most candidates proposed cutting government spending and taxes to help struggling families. But it’s unclear whether those policies, taken together, would be effective at lowering inflation.</p>
<p>The candidates also agreed on the need to promote U.S. energy independence – through drilling, fracking and coal – to promote low and stable inflation. But while reducing energy costs would support lower inflation, there was zero discussion of how new technologies like artificial intelligence could be used to fight inflation – for example, by improving productivity. In the end, most candidates resorted to old arguments and avoided debate on 21st-century solutions.</p>
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<h2>School choice is common refrain, but evidence on impact is mixed</h2>
<p><strong>Celeste K. Carruthers, University of Tennessee</strong> </p>
<p>Before a commercial break midway through the debate, moderators teased viewers to return for questions on education in the U.S. It’s understandable that voters would want to hear what candidates have to say on the issue. Younger students have <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2022/">a long way to go</a> to recover from COVID-era learning losses, and many families are dissatisfied with public education to the point that they are <a href="https://www.urban.org/research/publication/where-kids-went-nonpublic-schooling-and-demographic-change-during-pandemic">leaving public schools</a> for home school and private school options. The education portion of the debate ended up being a short exchange, however, with more focus on immigration, inflation, border security, foreign policy and the opioid epidemic. </p>
<p>One common theme across candidates was at least a brief mention of school choice. School choice describes a variety of different policies that give the parents of pre-K-12 students more options for where they send their kids to school. These options can include charter schools, magnet schools, public schools outside of a student’s school zone or in another district, or even private schools. </p>
<p>Gov. Haley voiced a <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/school-vouchers-next-great-leap-forward">commonly held view</a> among school choice supporters that providing students with more schooling options improves education by encouraging competition. Gov. DeSantis referenced “universal school choice” in his home state of Florida, which <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/florida-just-became-the-nations-biggest-school-choice-laboratory/">recently passed legislation</a> that allows any student to apply for several thousand dollars in state funds that can be used toward private school tuition. </p>
<p>Researchers have found that earlier phases of private school vouchers in Florida led to <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26758/w26758.pdf">improvements</a> in public school student test scores, absenteeism and suspensions, which supports the idea that competition from private schools can benefit students who opt not to use vouchers and stay in public schools.</p>
<p>Private school vouchers are, however, a contentious topic. Opponents of vouchers and school choice policies more generally argue that they put traditional public schools at a <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-policymakers-should-reject-k-12-school-voucher-plans">financial disadvantage</a>. Critics have also noted that some of the early voucher advocates viewed them as a way to <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/2017/7/23/21107262/critics-of-vouchers-say-they-re-marred-by-racism-and-exacerbate-segregation-are-they-right">avoid racial integration</a>. </p>
<p>Additionally, school choice can theoretically lead to sorting, where higher-achieving or higher-income students group together, and this can be detrimental to lower-achieving students who are left behind. There is <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1257/jel.20150679">evidence of sorting like this</a>, particularly in large-scale voucher systems outside the U.S. </p>
<p>Florida’s newly expanded model of school choice is <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/florida-just-became-the-nations-biggest-school-choice-laboratory/">one of the most comprehensive</a> in the country. <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/23689496/school-choice-education-savings-accounts-american-federation-children">Several other states</a> have also recently revised their school choice policies, generally extending eligibility for vouchers and education savings accounts beyond needy populations. In time, we can expect the evidence on school choice to grow substantially and perhaps occupy more attention in future debates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213433/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With Donald Trump absent again, Republican presidential hopefuls took potshots at each other but agreed that Bidenomics isn’t cutting it.Ryan Herzog, Associate Professor of Economics, Gonzaga UniversityCeleste K. Carruthers, Professor of Economics, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2111662023-08-11T12:37:11Z2023-08-11T12:37:11ZWho likes Donald Trump? Lots of Republicans, but especially Hispanic voters, plus very rural and very conservative people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542000/original/file-20230809-31833-26pa2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former President Donald Trump greets supporters following a 2020 campaign rally in Arizona.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-gestures-to-supporters-following-a-news-photo/1282738179?adppopup=true">Isaac Brekken/Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite multiple <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-investigations-other-charges-b8b064a00caad4306fb54d2f6a320468">state and federal indictments</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/31/us/politics/2024-poll-nyt-siena-trump-republicans.html">recent polling</a> indicates that former President Donald Trump retains a commanding lead in the race for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination. </p>
<p>So it seems useful to understand who, exactly, supports Trump – and whether the multiple criminal indictments against the former president have had any effect on his nomination prospects.</p>
<p>We are a multiuniversity team of social scientists that has been <a href="https://www.covidstates.org/">regularly polling</a> Americans in all 50 states since April 2020.</p>
<p>Our most recent survey, which ran from June 29, 2023, to Aug. 1, 2023, included 7,732 Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. We explored who, among these respondents, supports Trump in the 2024 Republican primary and how they reacted to his June 2023 indictment for <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-documents-maralago-politics-florida-charges-bee867f48da593d351c5a91e87c356a9">withholding classified documents</a>. </p>
<p>Since <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2023/republican-candidates-2024-gop-presidential-hopefuls-list/">no other Republican candidate</a> in our survey received more than 5% support, we focus on Trump and his nearest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.</p>
<p>Consistent with <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-r/2024/national/">recent polls</a>, we found that Trump has a commanding 40-point lead over DeSantis. </p>
<p>While Trump leads DeSantis across nearly all major demographic categories, his advantage is especially large among Hispanic voters. The same is true when considering Republicans who said that they do not have higher education degrees and those who are very conservative, live in very rural places or are lower-income. </p>
<h2>Very conservative voter support</h2>
<p>People who identified as “very conservative” comprised 14% of the Republicans in our survey. Their support for Trump in 2024 is overwhelming: They support Trump over DeSantis by a 69-12 margin.</p>
<p><iframe id="XCDUE" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/XCDUE/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-polls-very-conservative-voters-2016-2024/">FiveThirtyEight report</a> showed that the most conservative Republicans were not always such strong supporters of Trump, but their support has risen substantially since Trump’s election in 2016. </p>
<p>Very conservative respondents were also the most likely to say that they were sure about which 2024 candidate they support. Just 5% of this group said they have not yet made up their mind, relative to 19% of moderate Republicans who were unsure of who they would vote for.</p>
<h2>Younger support</h2>
<p>Despite the 77-year-old Trump’s being more than three decades older than DeSantis, he enjoys significantly higher levels of support among younger Republicans. </p>
<p>About 53% of Republicans ages 25 to 44 said they support Trump, while just 9% of these people said they would vote for DeSantis. And 48% of even younger Republicans, ages 18 to 24, preferred Trump, as compared with 7% who support DeSantis. </p>
<p>In contrast, the gap between the two candidates is smaller among Republicans ages 65 and older. While 53% of this group supports Trump, 14% said they prefer DeSantis. </p>
<p>That said, Republicans ages 18 to 24 were significantly more likely than people in other age groups to select a candidate other than Trump or DeSantis, or to say they were not sure who they would vote for if the election were held today.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541992/original/file-20230809-15-53bwna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two young white women wear Trump hats and take a selfie, in front of a crowd of people wearing winter clothing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541992/original/file-20230809-15-53bwna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541992/original/file-20230809-15-53bwna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541992/original/file-20230809-15-53bwna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541992/original/file-20230809-15-53bwna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541992/original/file-20230809-15-53bwna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541992/original/file-20230809-15-53bwna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541992/original/file-20230809-15-53bwna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the New York Young Republicans group rally for former president Donald Trump outside of the Manhattan district attorney’s office in May 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-new-york-young-republicans-and-the-long-news-photo/1248914377?adppopup=true">Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Hispanic and white voters</h2>
<p>Trump has a large advantage over DeSantis across all racial and ethnic groups we surveyed, but especially among Hispanic and white Republicans. </p>
<p>We found that Trump has a 45-point advantage over DeSantis among Hispanic Republicans, who are more likely to support him than any other racial and ethnic group we investigated.</p>
<p>About 52% of white Republican people we polled, meanwhile, said that they support Trump, compared with 12.1% who preferred DeSantis. The gap in preference for Trump over DeSantis among other ethnic groups, including Asian Americans and Black people, was smaller. </p>
<p><iframe id="MX5Mc" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/MX5Mc/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>No geographic or socioeconomic boundary</h2>
<p>Trump has a commanding lead over DeSantis across all geographic areas, but his lead is particularly strong among Republicans in very rural communities. </p>
<p>Trump enjoys a massive 51-point lead over DeSantis among those who describe the area in which they live as “very rural.” Trump’s vote share among rural Americans <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/">increased from 2016 to 2020</a> and remains a strong base of his support leading into the 2024 primary. </p>
<p>Trump also holds a large lead over DeSantis regardless of socioeconomic status, but the gap widens among lower-income and less-educated Republicans.</p>
<p>Among Republicans with a college or graduate degree, for example, Trump led DeSantis by a 45-15 margin, which jumped up to 55-9 among those without a college degree. Trump holds a 47-point advantage among white respondents without a college degree, which shrinks to 29 points for white respondents with college degrees. </p>
<h2>Trump’s legal woes aren’t a deciding factor</h2>
<p>We randomly embedded an experiment into our survey in which we asked a series of questions about Trump’s recent indictment in the Mar-a-Lago classified document case before or after asking Republicans their preferred 2024 candidate. </p>
<p>Our goal was to test whether prompting them to think about the indictment affected respondents’ support for Trump. </p>
<p>Trump’s indictment has given some Republican voters pause, but this concern is not leading them to support DeSantis.</p>
<p>Republicans who saw Trump’s indictment as justified were significantly less likely to support Trump in the 2024 primary, but they were not more likely to support DeSantis as a result. </p>
<p>The effect of answering questions about Trump’s indictment immediately before, rather than after, asking about preferences for the 2024 primary was strongest among self-identified moderate Republicans, who make up 29% of the Republicans in our survey. </p>
<p>Among those moderate Republicans, answering questions about Trump’s indictment before the 2024 Republican primary candidate preference question decreased support for Trump by 6 percentage points.</p>
<p>Among the 18% of Republicans who felt that Trump’s indictment was justified, only 10% reported supporting DeSantis in 2024, compared with 25% who still backed Trump. </p>
<p>For conservative and very conservative Republicans, however, being prompted to think about Trump’s indictment immediately before answering the 2024 candidate preference question increased support for Trump by 3 percentage points. </p>
<p>This lends credence to the idea <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3927731-republicans-see-indictment-as-boon-for-trump-in-2024/">some Republicans</a> have articulated that indictments could benefit Trump, but only among the most conservative Republicans.</p>
<h2>The bigger picture</h2>
<p>Our survey results show Trump with a commanding advantage over the field at this stage of the race for the 2024 Republican Party nomination.</p>
<p>That said, Trump’s support is not uniform across all Republicans – it is, for instance, notably higher among Republicans who identify with some of these characteristics – being less wealthy or educated, rural, older, Hispanic or white, or very conservative. </p>
<p>Moderate Republicans’ shift away from Trump after we reminded them about the classified documents indictment raises the possibility that additional indictments – such as the second one the Justice Department announced on Aug. 2, 2023, regarding attempts to overturn the 2020 election results – could negatively affect Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination, particularly among moderate voters. </p>
<p>Of course, our findings also suggest that they may further invigorate his ideologically conservative base.</p>
<p>Overall, potential indictment effects notwithstanding, our findings represent a picture of overwhelming domination by Trump across virtually all facets of the Republican Party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211166/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew A Baum receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Schulman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New findings by political scientists at Northwestern University and Harvard Kennedy School provide a clearer picture of which demographic groups support Trump.Jonathan Schulman, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, Northwestern UniversityMatthew A Baum, Professor of Global Communications and Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2107762023-08-04T12:28:28Z2023-08-04T12:28:28ZTrump’s political action committee wants a $60 million refund on paying his legal fees – 3 key things to know about PACs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540535/original/file-20230801-21-mmzd9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of Donald Trump's PACs has nearly dried up its resources by paying his legal fees.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/campaign-buttons-on-top-of-hundred-dollar-bills-royalty-free-image/486249544?phrase=Super+PAC&adppopup=true">iStock/Getty Images Plus </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Save America, one of former President Donald Trump’s political organizations, is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/us/trump-pac-legal-fees.html">seeking a US$60 million refund</a> from Make America Great Again, Inc., another Trump political organization that is less strictly regulated by federal rules.</em> </p>
<p><em>Save America has paid Trump’s legal fees connected to multiple investigations into alleged criminal activities and is now down to less than $4 million in its account, The New York Times reported on July 31, 2023. It <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/31/us/politics/trump-pac-filing.html">started 2022 with $105 million</a> in the bank.</em></p>
<p><em>Trump’s use of political action committees, often known as PACs, to pay his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/07/29/trump-lawyers-pac-deoliveira-loyal/">mounting legal fees</a> has raised questions about these organizations and how they spend money.</em> </p>
<p><em>First, what’s a PAC, anyway?</em></p>
<p><em>We <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/31/us/politics/trump-pac-filing.html">asked Richard Briffault,</a> a scholar of campaign finance law, to explain what is behind PACs and whether using them to pay for personal legal expenses is permitted. Here are three key points to understand:</em></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540536/original/file-20230801-17-os5s85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People walk through Times Square, in front of a large poster that says 'Super Trump' and shows Trump's face on a Superman body, flying." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540536/original/file-20230801-17-os5s85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540536/original/file-20230801-17-os5s85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540536/original/file-20230801-17-os5s85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540536/original/file-20230801-17-os5s85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540536/original/file-20230801-17-os5s85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540536/original/file-20230801-17-os5s85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540536/original/file-20230801-17-os5s85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People walk past a Times Square digital billboard created by a pro-Trump super PAC in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-walk-at-the-corner-of-47th-street-and-7th-avenue-as-news-photo/605881900?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. PACs are not all made equal</h2>
<p>PACs are organizations that raise and spend money on federal elections. A PAC may contribute money to a candidate or political party, or spend independently to promote or attack a candidate or party. </p>
<p>Corporations, labor unions and other ideological groups <a href="https://issueone.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Leadership-PACs-Inc.pdf">originally set up PACs</a> many decades ago as a way to participate in federal elections. Most PACs today are either connected to a sponsor organization or <a href="https://www.fec.gov/updates/statistical-summary-of-21-month-campaign-activity-of-the-2021-2022-election-cycle/">have a particular issue agenda</a>. These PACs typically donate to or spend money in support of multiple candidates. </p>
<p>Some PACs, however, are directly created by candidates or their supporters.</p>
<p>Trump’s situation involves two particular kinds of PACs: a leadership PAC <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/save-america/C00762591/summary/2022">named Save America</a> and a super PAC named <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/make-america-great-again-inc/C00825851/summary/2022">Make America Great Again, Inc.</a> </p>
<p>Leadership PACs, which date <a href="https://issueone.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Leadership-PACs-Inc.pdf">back to the late 1970s</a>, are created by candidates or officeholders to support other candidates for federal office, but not the <a href="https://www.fec.gov/campaign-finance-data/leadership-pacs-and-sponsors-description/">candidate’s own campaign</a>. They allow candidates to help fellow party members, strengthen their party’s position and boost their own efforts to win leadership positions. </p>
<p>A super PAC, meanwhile, is a PAC that does not contribute to candidates directly at all, but instead spends money independently to <a href="https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/filing-pac-reports/registering-super-pac/">promote or oppose candidates</a>. Like other PACS, a super PAC can pay for advertising, polling, opposition research and get-out-the-vote efforts. But the super PAC cannot coordinate its activities with the candidate it is supporting.</p>
<p>Super PACs emerged in 2010 following a controversial <a href="https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/speechnoworg-v-fec/">court of appeals decision</a>. The ruling found that if a PAC does not directly contribute to or coordinate with a candidate, the ordinary limits on money contributions to PACs do not apply. </p>
<p>Federal law caps individual donations to most PACs, including leadership PACs, <a href="https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/contribution_limits_chart_2023-2024.pdf">at $5,000 per year</a>.</p>
<p>The lack of caps on donations to super PACs is what merits the modifier “super.”</p>
<p>The case that gave rise to super PACs involved an independent organization not connected to any campaign or candidate. But some super PACs, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hates-lobbyistsexcept-the-ones-running-his-super-pac">including Trump’s,</a> are also created by people closely associated with a candidate and devote their spending entirely to the support of that candidate. </p>
<p>Because contribution limits do not apply to super PACs, they have become an essential component of <a href="https://www.minnesotalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Briffault_MLR.pdf">election campaigns</a> over the last 13 years.</p>
<h2>2. PACs can sometimes pay legal fees</h2>
<p>Campaign money is supposed to be used for campaign purposes and not for what election law refers to as <a href="https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements/personal-use/">“personal use,”</a> such as a political candidate’s home mortgage. </p>
<p>It is illegal to use campaign money to <a href="https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements/personal-use/">pay for personal expenses</a> that would have occurred whether or not the candidate was running for office. </p>
<p>The Federal Election Commission <a href="https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements/personal-use/">has ruled that campaign</a> funds can be used to pay a candidate’s legal fees if an investigation relates directly to the election or the candidate’s time in political office. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540537/original/file-20230801-19-svyedc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man looks at a wall covered in photos and text, including one plaque that says 'welcome to the big, beautiful Trump museum.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540537/original/file-20230801-19-svyedc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540537/original/file-20230801-19-svyedc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540537/original/file-20230801-19-svyedc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540537/original/file-20230801-19-svyedc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540537/original/file-20230801-19-svyedc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540537/original/file-20230801-19-svyedc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540537/original/file-20230801-19-svyedc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Democratic super PAC, American Bridge, created a Trump museum in Cleveland, showcasing parts of the former president’s life he would rather keep quiet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-visits-exhibits-at-a-so-called-trump-museum-in-news-photo/577714990?adppopup=true">William Edwards/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>3. Trump’s case enters murky territory</h2>
<p>The Federal Election Commission ruling means that election funding laws could allow Trump to use money from his PAC to pay for legal fees in connection with the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-new-york-hush-money-f8ad2bd8845d1295db439719b4987e54">New York hush money</a> case – which relates to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign – as well as the federal and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/31/us/trump-georgia-prosecutor-election.html">Georgia investigations</a> of Trump’s role in challenging the results of the 2020 election. </p>
<p>But money raised for a campaign could probably not cover the Department of Justice’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190619704/trump-charged-with-additional-count-in-mar-a-lago-documents-case">Mar-a-Lago documents case</a>, which does not involve either Trump’s campaign or his time in office. </p>
<p>The FEC has, in some cases, <a href="https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-disbursements/personal-use/">also determined that a politician</a> may use campaign funds to pay for up to 50% of legal expenses that do not relate directly to allegations arising from campaign or officeholder activity.</p>
<p>This is true if the politician is required to provide substantive responses to the media while a candidate, regarding alleged illegal activity. So, campaign money might be used in the Mar-a-Lago case.</p>
<p>What’s unclear – and possibly unlawful – is whether Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America, can pay for Trump’s legal expenses. </p>
<p>This is because leadership PACs are supposed to spend money on other political candidates, not the candidate who controls the leadership PAC. And in this case, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Save_America">Save America is controlled by Trump</a>. </p>
<p>It’s also not clear whether the money transfers from the super PAC Make America Great Again, Inc, to Save America <a href="https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/2022-11/Trump%20Save%20America%20PAC%20Complaint%20%28Final%29.pdf">are consistent with the legal requirement</a> that super PACs operate independently of a candidate’s campaign. </p>
<p>The request for refunds only underscores that concern.</p>
<p>The Federal Election Commission monitors any PAC-related legal issues or violations of election law. But given that the commission is facing <a href="https://shpr.legislature.ca.gov/sites/shpr.legislature.ca.gov/files/Ravel%20-%20FEC%20Dysfunction.pdf">“dysfunction and deadlock,”</a> as a former FEC chair has said, there is unlikely to be clarification or enforcement anytime soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210776/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Briffault does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are different kinds of PACs, but it is not clear if Trump’s use of them to pay his large legal fees violates election or campaign finance laws.Richard Briffault, Joseph P. Chamberlain Professor of Legislation, Columbia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2074822023-06-12T11:49:48Z2023-06-12T11:49:48Z‘If you want to die in jail, keep talking’ – two national security law experts discuss the special treatment for Trump and offer him some advice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531249/original/file-20230611-23-dl1h4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2953%2C1921&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former President Donald Trump on his airplane on June 10, 2023, two days after his federal indictment.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-president-donald-trump-speaks-to-staff-and-reporters-news-photo/1258608437?adppopup=true">Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Lawyer Thomas A. Durkin has spent much of his career working in <a href="https://www.luc.edu/law/faculty/facultyandadministrationprofiles/durkin-thomas.shtml">national security law</a>, representing clients in a variety of national security and domestic terrorism matters. <a href="https://www.luc.edu/law/faculty/facultyandadministrationprofiles/ferguson-joseph.shtml">Joseph Ferguson</a> was a national security prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, where Durkin was also a prosecutor. Both teach national security law at Loyola University, Chicago. The Conversation U.S.’s democracy editor, Naomi Schalit, spoke with the two attorneys about <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23839628-trump-indictment">the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump</a> on Espionage Act and other charges related to his retention of national security-related classified documents.</em></p>
<p><strong><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republicans-repeat-trumps-claim-doj-weaponization-after-2nd/story?id=99963397">The word “weaponized”</a> has been <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-magnifies-attacks-justice-department-post-charges-speech-2023-06-10/">used by Trump</a>, his supporters and even his GOP rivals to describe the Department of Justice. Do you see the Trump prosecution as different in any notable way from other Espionage Act prosecutions that you’ve worked on or observed?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Durkin</strong>: Obviously, it’s different because of who the defendant is. But I see it in kind of an opposite way: If Trump were anyone other than a former president, he would not have been given the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/us/reality-winner-nsa-sentence.html">luxury of a summons to appear in court</a>. There would be a team of armed FBI agents outside his door at 6:30 in the morning, he would have been arrested and the government would be immediately moving to detain. So the idea that he’s being treated differently is true – but not from the way his supporters seem to be arguing. </p>
<p><strong>Ferguson</strong>: What you have is a method, manner and means of pursuing this matter and bringing it forward to indictment that actually completely comports with the deepest traditions and standards of the Department of Justice, which would normally consider all contexts and the best interests of society. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531252/original/file-20230611-150540-ts7ejl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dark haired man with a bear approaching a lectern." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531252/original/file-20230611-150540-ts7ejl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531252/original/file-20230611-150540-ts7ejl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531252/original/file-20230611-150540-ts7ejl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531252/original/file-20230611-150540-ts7ejl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531252/original/file-20230611-150540-ts7ejl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531252/original/file-20230611-150540-ts7ejl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531252/original/file-20230611-150540-ts7ejl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Special Counsel Jack Smith briefly discussed the Trump indictment on June 9, 2023, in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/special-counsel-jack-smith-makes-a-statement-from-the-news-photo/1258577211?adppopup=true">Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p><strong>If Trump were your client, what would you advise him to do?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Durkin</strong>: The first thing I would do is show him a guidelines memo, which we typically create for every client to help them understand the potential consequences of the charges. Under the <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2023/06/qa-on-trumps-federal-indictment/">U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, the consequences for Trump under this indictment are serious</a>. My quick calculations indicate that you’re talking about 51 to 63 months in the best case and in the worst case, which I’m not sure would apply, 210 to 262 months. </p>
<p>Whether he wants to roll heavy dice, that’s up to him. But those are very heavy dice. </p>
<p><strong>Ferguson</strong>: I might pull media statements that he has made in the last couple years and explain to him how they have complicated the ability to defend him. I’d put on the table to him that I need to see every statement that he is going to make in the political realm about this before he makes it. I’d tell him he’s otherwise basically hanging himself. </p>
<p>I’d tell him: If you want to die in jail, keep talking. But if you want to try to figure out a way that brings about an acceptable resolution - a plea deal that opens the door to a lighter jail sentence than what the guidelines threaten and, possibly, even no jail time – you need to turn it down or at least have it screened by your lawyers. </p>
<p><strong>Are there specific things he might say between now and a trial that could deepen his trouble?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Ferguson</strong>: No question about that. And people should understand that the things that he said already are being used as <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23839628-trump-indictment">evidence of intent</a>. From now on, the repetition of them constitutes new admissible evidence. It’s not like, “Oh, I’ve already said it, so I might as well keep saying it.” </p>
<p>That does not mean that he cannot offer the broad brush characterization, “I’m being wronged. This is the weaponization of law enforcement and the justice system against me, and I will be vindicated,” however imprudent I might think that was. But anything that goes beyond that, and into the actual particulars, referencing the documents themselves, will just make it worse. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531253/original/file-20230611-25-wqcduw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pile of pages from an indictment." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531253/original/file-20230611-25-wqcduw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531253/original/file-20230611-25-wqcduw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531253/original/file-20230611-25-wqcduw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531253/original/file-20230611-25-wqcduw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531253/original/file-20230611-25-wqcduw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531253/original/file-20230611-25-wqcduw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531253/original/file-20230611-25-wqcduw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Pages from the unsealed federal indictment of former President Donald Trump on 37 felony counts in the classified documents probe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-photo-illustration-pages-are-viewed-from-the-news-photo/1258567425?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p><strong>The Trump indictment provides <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/09/trump-indictment-takeaways-00101376">extensive details</a> of what was said and done. Do you take those as true, or as allegations that need to be proved?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Ferguson</strong>: Both. They are technically the allegations that need to be proven, but when you’re speaking at that level of granularity, these are things that actually exist in proof, the proof that is to come. </p>
<p>The government basically raises the bar when it provides this form of granularity. The federal government is a risk-averse enterprise when it comes to these matters, so nothing is put in the indictment unless it exists in actual fact.</p>
<p><strong>Durkin</strong>: If you’re defending someone, you treat the allegations as true.</p>
<p><strong>Can you imagine a situation with all of the facts laid out in this indictment but where they would not indict?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Durkin</strong>: No.</p>
<p><strong>Ferguson</strong>: That’s why we both say that in fundamental respects, this isn’t different from other national security cases. These cases work from the premise that this is a fundamental compromising of the interests of the United States. And those are the cases that the government pursues tooth and nail. With so much in the public domain, and with so much of the defendant himself speaking to all of this, it almost puts the government in a position of saying, “Well, OK, if we have to, here we go.”</p>
<p><strong>Durkin</strong>: There’s only one reason the government could not bring this case, and that’s fear of violence or an attack on the republic. Once you do that, then you might as well close the Department of Justice and forget about any rule of law. </p>
<p><strong>Trump knows a lot of state secrets. An angry Trump in prison has risks. If he were found guilty, what does incarceration look like for him?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Durkin</strong>: I can tell you what it would mean to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-is-espionage-act-what-might-it-mean-donald-trump-2023-06-11/">anyone else</a>. They’d be put in a hole in the wall in <a href="https://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/flm/">maximum security at Florence, Colorado</a>, and they would apply what’s called “<a href="https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-24000-requests-special-confinement-conditions">Special Administrative Measures</a>.” Several of my terrorism clients have had those imposed on them. There’s a microphone outside their solitary confinement to monitor anything that they say, even between prisoners. Their mail is extremely limited. Their telephone contact is extremely limited. And that’s what would happen to anyone else similarly situated. </p>
<p><strong>Ferguson</strong>: Trump’s insistence on keeping talking about this creates a record that would justify isolation in maximum security on the basis that “We can’t trust this man not to continue to talk. We can’t trust him not to further share these secrets with people who may wish to do harm with them. The only way to avoid that is to put him in isolation in supermax where he doesn’t get to talk with people, except under these extremely closely monitored circumstances, certainly isn’t in a general population situation, gets to take a walk in a courtyard for one hour out of the 24 hours of the day, and the other 23 hours, leaving him mostly without human contact.”</p>
<p><strong>Is there a specific line he could cross that would force the government to seek to detain him prior to trial?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Durkin</strong>: I predict that if he keeps it up, and especially if he keeps suggesting or threatening violence, that the government will be put in a position where they don’t have a choice but to try to move to detain him. In the real world, that’s what would happen if it was anybody but him. Normally, you can’t be threatening this type of stuff without being put in detention. </p>
<p><strong>Ferguson</strong>: The smart play here would be for a judge to put him under a gag order that instructs him on what he may and may not say publicly. That’s already been done by <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/23/1177644144/trump-stormy-daniels-judge-new-york-hush-money-case-carroll">a New York judge in the other pending criminal case</a> against Trump. This would be a complicated exercise in balancing First Amendment rights with national security interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207482/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you were Trump’s lawyer, what would you advise him to do now? Two national security specialists have some words for and about the former president after his federal indictment.Thomas A. Durkin, Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, Loyola University ChicagoJoseph Ferguson, Co-Director, National Security and Civil Rights Program, Loyola University ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2073892023-06-09T12:30:28Z2023-06-09T12:30:28ZSupreme Court rules in favor of Black voters in Alabama and protects landmark Voting Rights Act<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531014/original/file-20230608-29-ocxu6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=783%2C250%2C4776%2C3442&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black marchers in Selma, Ala., demonstrate for voting rights protections on March 6, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-march-across-the-edmund-pettus-bridge-with-placards-news-photo/1381895648?adppopup=true">Brandon Bell/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a surprising ruling on June 8, 2023, the conservative leaning <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf">U.S. Supreme Court</a> threw out Republican-drawn congressional districts in Alabama that a lower court had ruled discriminated against Black voters and <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/election-law-explainers/section-2-of-the-voting-rights-act-vote-dilution-and-vote-deprivation/">violated Section 2</a> of the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act">Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>. </p>
<p>At issue in the case that was before the court, Allen v. Milligan, was whether <a href="https://time.com/6285832/scotus-alabama-redistricting-case/">the power of Black voters</a> in Alabama was diluted by dividing them into districts where white voters dominate. After the 2020 census, the Republican-controlled Alabama legislature <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-rules-favor-black-142654715.html">redrew the state’s congressional districts</a> to include only one out of seven in which Black voters would likely be able to elect a candidate of their choosing.</p>
<p>Black residents make up about 27% of the state’s population, and <a href="https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/merrill-v-milligan-faq/">voting rights advocates</a> argued that they deserved not one but two political districts. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=566DVVQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Rodney Coates</a> is a sociologist who studies race and ethnicity and has followed efforts by politicians throughout American history to use redistricting to disenfranchise Black voters. The Conversation asked him four questions about the ruling and its implications.</p>
<h2>What does the decision mean for Black voters in Alabama?</h2>
<p>The decision means that Black voters in Alabama, and across the country, will retain <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/08/1181002182/supreme-court-voting-rights">the last remaining voter rights protections</a>. Specifically, Alabama lawmakers will need to redraw their legislative districts to include two districts that reflect the Black population. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/26/1026457264/1965-voting-rights-act-supreme-court-john-lewis">The Voting Rights Act of 1965</a> was enacted to prohibit racist practices by Southern states that were used to prevent Black people from voting. Those measures included literacy tests, poll taxes and voter intimidation.</p>
<p>Prior to the law’s passage, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/voting-rights-for-african-americans/">less than a quarter</a> of voting-age Blacks were registered to vote across the nation. In 1969, that figure had risen to 61%. </p>
<p>The ruling will also set an <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/08/voting-rights-act-dodges-bullet-at-supreme-court-00101004">important precedent for redistricting cases alleging discrimination</a> as voters and their representatives challenge state maps. Among Democrats there is the belief that the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/06/voting-rights-act-supreme-court-allen-milligan/674342/">ruling will impact</a> pending cases and require Alabama, as well as Louisiana and Georgia, to add new majority-minority districts prior to the next congressional elections.</p>
<h2>Why was this decision considered a surprise?</h2>
<p>The ruling in Allen vs. Milligan was a surprise because of the voting by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh with the three liberal justices. </p>
<p>In his opinion for the majority, Roberts traced the importance of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. He explained how racially motivated voter suppression after the Civil War led to the initial passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. </p>
<p>In order to <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/446/55/">avoid creating racially designated legislative districts</a>, Congress established that the electoral process should <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/john-roberts-brett-kavanaugh-save-voting-rights-act.html">allow for the equal participation of all racial groups</a>, Roberts wrote in his opinion. </p>
<p>Roberts’ thinking in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf">Allen vs. Milligan</a> is radically different from the one he held when he was an attorney serving in the U.S. Department of Justice during the Reagan administration. Then, Roberts <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/john-roberts-brett-kavanaugh-save-voting-rights-act.html">wrote 25 memos in opposition to the VRA, specifically in reference to section 2</a>. </p>
<p>Only Roberts knows why his perspective has changed over time. But <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/john-roberts-brett-kavanaugh-save-voting-rights-act.html">perhaps Alabama</a> went too far, too fast and was too partisan.</p>
<p>“States shouldn’t let race be the primary factor in deciding how to draw boundaries but it should be a consideration,” Roberts wrote. “The line we have drawn is between consciousness and predominance.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf">Roberts went further</a> by citing the repugnant racial history of Alabama.</p>
<p>Even as the Black population increased to over 27% of the state’s population over the past 30 years, the number of Black districts remained at one, largely because white conservatives have used their control of the state legislature to dilute the strength of Black voters. </p>
<h2>Is the Voting Rights Act still under attack?</h2>
<p>While a breath of fresh air for voting rights activists, this ruling does not mean that <a href="https://www.stltoday.com/news/republicans-are-set-to-push-mail-ballots-and-other-voting-methods-they-previously-blasted-as/article_875ccdf1-2a76-5b6b-985b-617d8bd28cab.html">white conservatives will cease their attack</a>. </p>
<p>GOP-controlled congressional maps diluting or eliminating Black districts have been drawn in multiple states, including <a href="https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/elections/supreme-court-blocks-order-to-create-two-black-congressional-districts-in-louisiana/article_69efb326-f71e-11ec-a6a1-93c41746ba60.html">Louisiana</a>, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/another-motion-is-filed-against-georgia-s-voting-law/ar-AA1bXvPQ">Georgia</a>, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ohio-republicans-disguise-august-ballot-language-to-fool-you-into-eroding-our-democracy-today-in-ohio/ar-AA1bpf0H">Ohio</a> and <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/24/texas-felony-illegal-voting/">Texas</a>. These efforts could significantly alter the 2024 electoral map. </p>
<p>Several lawsuits are currently working their way through the courts across the country in states such as <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/what-the-supreme-court-ruling-in-alabama-could-mean-for-florida-s-redistricting-suit/ar-AA1cj7vc">Florida</a>, <a href="https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2023/may/24/second-lawsuit-filed-challenging-arkansas/">Arkansas</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/15/supreme-court-racial-redistricting-case-00096925">South Carolina</a> and <a href="https://www.wxxinews.org/local-news/2023-06-08/appellate-panel-hears-arguments-in-latest-new-york-redistricting-challenge">New York</a>.</p>
<h2>What are the remaining obstacles to full Black voting power?</h2>
<p>Across the country, there has been a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/voting-rights-tracker.html">concerted effort to restrict voting</a> and control the election machinery and even the outcome of these votes.</p>
<p>Dozens of Republican-controlled states have passed a series of laws that will curtail voting of Blacks and many other Americans. </p>
<p>These laws are in Florida, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/supreme-court-backs-landmark-voting-rights-law-strikes-down-alabama-congressional-map/ar-AA1ci4Pw">where registration is harder</a>; <a href="https://omaha.com/eedition/sunrise/articles/voter-id-measure-now-law/article_e92223c6-736c-5ca2-8153-e36e303a2be2.html">in Nebraska</a>, which has enacted more stringent voter identification measures; in <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mississippi-absentee-ballot-law-harms-voters-with-disabilities-lawsuit-says/ar-AA1c2OnJ">Mississippi</a>, which placed restrictions on absentee ballots; and in Georgia, which increased <a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/prolific-voter-challenger-nominated-by-gop-to-fulton-elections-board/PESG7SD2XJDFPDHSY7DUUOUKSI/">voter scrutiny by allowing anyone to challenge</a> the qualifications of other voters.</p>
<p>Uncertainty prevails at the state and federal level, and according to Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Steven Horsford, <a href="https://thegrio.com/2023/06/08/black-leaders-supreme-court-voting-rights-alabama/">only a national law</a> aimed at eliminating the various suppression tactics that target Black voters will remedy the situation. </p>
<h2>How do these laws typically affect Black people?</h2>
<p>As many as <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-october-2022">42 restrictive voting-rights laws</a> in 21 states have been passed since 2021. </p>
<p>Among these, 33 contain at least one restrictive provision that will impact elections in 20 states. These <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-october-2022">restrictive provisions</a> would make it harder for eligible Blacks to vote.</p>
<p>These laws are being vigorously challenged by groups such as the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/issues/voting-rights/fighting-voter-suppression">ACLU</a>, <a href="https://naacp.org/resources/voter-suppression-and-voter-nullification-laws">NAACP</a>, <a href="https://www.lwv.org/voting-rights/fighting-voter-suppression">League of Women Voters</a>, <a href="https://fairfight.com/voter-suppression-awareness/">Fair Fight Action</a> and the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20210316/overcoming-unprecedented-southern-voters-battle-against-voter-suppression-intimidation-and">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>, which are mobilizing protests, organizing voters and launching legal challenges.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207389/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rodney Coates does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At a time when state legislatures are enacting laws that restrict who, when and where people can vote, the US Supreme Court ruled to protect voting rights.Rodney Coates, Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Miami UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2053432023-05-11T17:41:54Z2023-05-11T17:41:54ZDespite the end of Title 42, restrictions on asylum seekers are expected to continue under Biden administration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525473/original/file-20230510-18887-a0x73r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C143%2C3940%2C2514&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Venezuelan asylum-seeker carries his daughter before they cross the Rio Grande into Brownsville, Texas. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/venezuelan-asylum-seeker-jehan-carlo-ramirez-carries-his-news-photo/1245788787?adppopup=true">Veronica G. Cardenas/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A Trump administration immigration order, Title 42, that allowed U.S. border officials to quickly expel migrants at the U.S. southern border – <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-keeps-title-42-border-expulsions-indefinitely-grants-gop-led-petition/">with no exceptions for asylum-seekers</a> – expires May 11, 2023. But its legacy of restricting asylum petitions may continue as President Joe Biden takes steps to reduce the flow of illegal immigration to the country.</p>
<p>Officially called <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title42/html/USCODE-2010-title42-chap6A.htm">Title 42 of the U.S. Code</a>, the little-known law was written in 1944 to prevent the spread of influenza and allow authorities to bar entry to foreigners deemed to be at risk of spreading the disease.</p>
<p>In March 2020, on the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, then-President <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/29/immigration-title-42-biden/">Donald Trump invoked the law</a> to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>While the Trump administration was reluctant to impose federal lockdowns or mask mandates at the start of the pandemic, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/08/26/fact-check-and-review-of-trump-immigration-policy/?sh=2688d3be56c0">it was aggressive</a> in its use of Title 42 to close the border to many migrants, including people fleeing from persecution and planning to apply for asylum. </p>
<p>As written, <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title42/html/USCODE-2010-title42-chap6A.htm">Title 42 of the U.S. Code</a> allows for the “suspension of entries and imports from designated places to prevent spread of communicable diseases.” </p>
<p>In practice, the law enabled U.S. law enforcement officers to immediately deny entry to asylum-seekers and other migrants.</p>
<p>Trump and his advisers used this law <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/03/us/coronavirus-immigration-stephen-miller-public-health.html">to advance their goal of restricting</a> the number of new immigrants.</p>
<p>In fact, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/politics/title-42-migrants/index.html">ruled in November 2022</a> that the Trump administration’s implementation of Title 42 was “arbitrary and capricious” and blamed the CDC for failing to come up with reasonable alternatives.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/ernesto.cfm">immigration researcher and expert on international borders</a>, I have followed border crossing trends and the effects of Title 42 since it went into effect. </p>
<p>By itself, the end of Title 42 will not weaken border security, as many <a href="https://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/investigative-commentary-signs-show-border-panic-is-overblown-politically-motivated/article_e34e0904-2b8a-5dcb-a558-7000d7ac3748.html">conservative politicians and commentators</a> have claimed. Nor, in my view, will it mean that the U.S. has open borders – despite the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/us/title-42-border-migrants.html">recent surge</a> of asylum-seekers at the U.S. southern border. </p>
<h2>More than a million migrants expelled</h2>
<p>During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/04/27/key-facts-about-title-42-the-pandemic-policy-that-has-reshaped-immigration-enforcement-at-u-s-mexico-border/#">around 51% of the people</a> encountered at the border were immediately expelled or put into removal proceedings as a result of Title 42. </p>
<p>U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters">over 1 million people</a> were denied entry under Title 42 alone in each of the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years.</p>
<p>After being sent back, many often tried to enter again and, as a result, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-number-of-encounters-at-the-southern-u-s-border-does-not-mean-what-the-gop-says-it-means-191144">inflated the counts of border encounters</a>. Others were <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Title_8_of_the_United_States_Code">expelled under Title 8</a>, which will continue to be used to deport people after taking their information. </p>
<p>For its part, the Biden administration expected the end of Title 42 and has already dispatched <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/politics/us-troops-border-migrant-surge/index.html">1,500 active-duty troops</a> to the U.S.-Mexico border to help shut down illegal border crossings. In addition, Biden’s <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-government-announces-sweeping-new-actions-to-manage-regional-migration/">new plan</a> would make any asylum claim ineligible unless migrants first applied in another country they had passed through.</p>
<h2>The number of border encounters may decline without Title 42</h2>
<p>In my view, after some months, the lifting of Title 42 will actually result in a decrease in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-number-of-encounters-at-the-southern-u-s-border-does-not-mean-what-the-gop-says-it-means-191144">official number of encounters</a> at the U.S. southern border because fewer people will be asking for asylum there and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/22/immigration-border-biden-trump/">counted multiple times</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, the bottleneck created by the pandemic border closure to asylum-seekers will eventually ease.</p>
<p>What is critical to understand is that the end of Title 42 in itself does not change the root causes of migration. </p>
<p>Political and economic conditions in Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela have forced many families to flee to the U.S., as has the widespread, <a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/why-the-central-america-crisis-is-so-persistent/">unchecked organized crime</a> in certain regions of Mexico and Central America.</p>
<p>But recent measures established by the Biden administration suggest that people will face more – not fewer – difficulties in obtaining asylum in the U.S. after the end of Title 42. People now have to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbp-one-app-us-border-asylum-biden/">get an appointment</a> using the CBP One app and may also need to apply and be denied asylum at one of the safe countries they pass through on the way to the United States. </p>
<p>As partisan debate over immigration policy rages on, it is important to remember that Title 42 was originally designed to prevent the spread of a highly contagious disease – not to deny people their legal right to make a claim for asylum in the U.S.</p>
<p><em>This <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-trump-era-law-used-to-restrict-immigration-is-nearing-its-end-despite-gop-warnings-of-a-looming-crisis-at-the-southern-border-194971">article relied on reporting originally published</a> on Dec. 15, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ernesto Castañeda does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Title 42 has triggered criticisms from immigration advocates and public health experts. But the end of the controversial policy may mean fewer asylum seekers crossing the US border.Ernesto Castañeda, Associate Professor of Sociology, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2016232023-03-16T12:30:57Z2023-03-16T12:30:57ZTennessee’s drag ban rehashes old culture war narratives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515517/original/file-20230315-26-vndw56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C10%2C3484%2C2315&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A drag queen reads to a group of parents and kids at a library in Los Angeles in July 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protest-against-the-drag-queen-story-hour-event-at-welling-news-photo/1411832510?phrase=drag story hour&adppopup=true">Guy Smallman/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tennessee recently <a href="https://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/113/Amend/HA0011.pdf">passed legislation</a> that bans drag from being performed in public spaces, as well as in the view of children. Although Tennessee is the first state to enact such a ban, it is unlikely to be the last, as others with conservative legislatures are <a href="https://apnews.com/article/drag-queens-tennessee-bill-legislation-3ed2ddd0e8231819ade5d0c8b9f4c30a">currently considering similar action</a>. Some states proposing bans have <a href="https://time.com/6260421/tennessee-limiting-drag-shows-status-of-anti-drag-bills-u-s/">explicitly targeted Drag Story Hour</a>, which involves drag performers reading books to children in public spaces such as libraries. </p>
<p>So why does the American public suddenly need to be protected from drag? </p>
<p>The answer to this question has deep roots in modern U.S. history. </p>
<p>Tennessee’s ban on drag is not an isolated event. Rather, it is only the latest volley in the broader culture war between American conservatives and progressives to define the values of the country. </p>
<h2>A centurylong war</h2>
<p>In 1991, sociologist <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=KTiTxl-rY9AC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=hunter+culture+wars&ots=JugnjdouL-&sig=kjjT85c8xRa2dA78R71MPjWaJYY#v=onepage&q=hunter%20culture%20wars&f=false">James Davison Hunter</a> alerted Americans that the nation was in the midst of a perpetual culture war that would “continue to have reverberations not only within public policy but within the lives of ordinary Americans everywhere.” </p>
<p>Examples of early culture war battles include the 1925 <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/scopes-trial">Scopes Monkey Trial</a>, in which a Tennessee high school science teacher was prosecuted for violating anti-evolution laws, and the 1962 <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/engel-v-vitale/">Supreme Court ruling</a> that deemed school-sponsored prayer unconstitutional. </p>
<p>Culture war conflict came to a head in the 1980s and 1990s, with Senate hearings over the perceived dangers of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/dee-snider-on-pmrc-hearing-i-was-a-public-enemy-71205/">heavy metal music</a> and obscenity in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/05/10/pop-culture-takes-the-rap-as-congress-battles-violence/96d62842-7f04-415e-8a40-e21e17e80750/">rap music</a>.</p>
<p>Social scientists largely thought the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IByIDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP8&dq=hartman+a+war+for+the+soul+of+america&ots=wjK0iJJIc7&sig=gIobLQ_e0OfU-LMrWo77TSZ0p_0#v=onepage&q=hartman%20a%20war%20for%20the%20soul%20of%20america&f=false">culture wars had receded</a> at the turn of the 21st century. Then former President Donald Trump’s battle cry to “Make America Great Again” rallied troops back into action.</p>
<p>As Hunter noted in his monumental tome, culture war disputes <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IByIDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP8&dq=hartman+A+War+for+the+Soul+of+America:+A+History+of+the+Culture+Wars&ots=wjK0gGLQ38&sig=WCz2um1_8hAYro0UDcTjYpQz5Ms#v=onepage&q=hartman%20A%20War%20for%20the%20Soul%20of%20America%3A%20A%20History%20of%20the%20Culture%20Wars&f=false">usually intensify during times of upheaval</a>, such as changes in the country’s demographics and shifts in the distribution of political power. These shifts lead people to wonder exactly whose values, languages, religions and opportunities are respected or promoted by the government, law and popular culture.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, cultural conflict tends to emerge within institutions that have practical implications for Americans’ lives: family, public schools, popular media, public art and law. </p>
<h2>Ripe conditions for a new battle</h2>
<p>The first Drag Story Hour <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/12/first-edition-drag-queen-story-hour">took place in 2015</a>. It was organized by author and queer activist Michelle Tea and the San Francisco-based literacy nonprofit RADAR Productions. The <a href="https://www.dragstoryhour.org/about">official mission</a> of Drag Story Hour is to celebrate “reading through the glamorous art of drag” and create “diverse, accessible, and culturally-inclusive family programming where kids can express their authentic selves.”</p>
<p>Because these performances take place in public spaces and in front of children, they hit upon a couple of important culture war triggers. </p>
<p>First, public performances can spark cultural conflict because they can signify exactly whose values are prioritized over others. Second, art and performances that reach audiences of children are often perceived as a threat to the family as an institution. </p>
<p>For example, in the 1980s, some activists and politicians viewed profane music as a threat to the family. This led to the introduction of <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2015/10/09/oral-history-tipper-gores-war-explicit-rock-lyrics-dee-snider-373103.html">parental advisory labels</a> to identify music deemed inappropriate for children.</p>
<h2>‘When librarians were nice Christian ladies’</h2>
<p>As social scientists who study gender and culture, we recently <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23294965211050019">analyzed reactions to Drag Story Hour</a> that were posted on social media forums. </p>
<p>In our analysis, we found that many grievances centered on institutions and values crucial to the culture wars. </p>
<p>We found that conservatives reminisced about a time when their values were dominant in American society and rehashed old culture war narratives about “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Threatened_Children/8VIg9STL-wUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=best+threatened+children&printsec=frontcover">threatened children</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Group of protesters hold signs with text reading 'groomer.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515519/original/file-20230315-22-4l4pl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515519/original/file-20230315-22-4l4pl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515519/original/file-20230315-22-4l4pl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515519/original/file-20230315-22-4l4pl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515519/original/file-20230315-22-4l4pl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515519/original/file-20230315-22-4l4pl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515519/original/file-20230315-22-4l4pl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many opponents of Drag Story Hour claim that the events endanger kids by ‘grooming’ them to be sexually exploited.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protest-against-the-drag-queen-story-hour-event-at-welling-news-photo/1411832510?phrase=drag%20story%20hour&adppopup=true">Guy Smallman/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They specifically expressed nostalgia for a time when American culture was anchored by conservative values, and progressive views existed on the periphery of public life. As one forum member lamented, “When I was a kid, the librarians were nice Christian ladies and there was an American flag outside. My current public library [has] scary levels of liberal posters and talks.”</p>
<p>Some conservatives also used rhetoric reminiscent of the “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Satanic_Panic.html?id=abJqF8csPrQC">Satanic Panic</a>” of the 1980s and 1990s by claiming that drag performers were satanic pedophiles who sought to recruit, groom and sexually abuse children. Others argued that parents who take their children to Drag Story Hour should be jailed or lose their parental rights.</p>
<h2>The safety of children as political fodder</h2>
<p>In our view, it’s no accident that Tennessee’s ban on drag specifically targets drag performed in front of children. </p>
<p>Emphasizing threats to children is a well-established strategy for conveying the decline of American culture and values. As sociologists Joel Best and Kathleen Bogle have noted, adults often <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Kids_Gone_Wild/91YTCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=best+bogle+kids+gone+wild&printsec=frontcover">project their anxieties and fears</a> concerning a perceived disintegration of traditional norms onto younger generations, whom they believe need to be shielded.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, anti-gay activist Anita Bryant launched her “Save our Children” campaign. Claiming that gays and lesbians were “recruiting children” to their cause, <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-transgender-bills-are-latest-version-of-conservatives-longtime-strategy-to-rally-their-base-158296">she successfully pressed voters to oppose</a> anti-discrimination statutes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of woman speaking at a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515542/original/file-20230315-2388-69ahd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515542/original/file-20230315-2388-69ahd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515542/original/file-20230315-2388-69ahd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515542/original/file-20230315-2388-69ahd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515542/original/file-20230315-2388-69ahd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515542/original/file-20230315-2388-69ahd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515542/original/file-20230315-2388-69ahd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In today’s opposition to Drag Story Hour, there are echoes of the rhetoric of anti-gay activist Anita Bryant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/anita-bryant-is-near-tears-as-several-hundred-demonstrators-news-photo/515123282?phrase=anita%20bryant&adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And in the 1980s, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00169.x">fears over changing family structures</a>, such as rising divorce rates and an influx of working mothers, fueled a moral panic that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-modern-witch-hunt/2015/07/31/057effd8-2f1a-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html">day care staffers were ritualistically abusing children</a>.</p>
<p>Almost half a century later, fears regarding advancements in LGBTQ+ rights have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/florida-dont-say-gay-law-signed-56aee61f075a12663f25990c7b31624d">produced legislation restricting discussions of gender identity</a> in schools and stoked claims that drag performers are satanists who terrorize children.</p>
<p>The deployment of these well-worn narratives is unlikely to end with legislation such as Tennessee’s drag ban. Rather, it will continue as long as conservatives and progressives battle to define American values.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201623/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Emphasizing threats to children is a well-worn refrain among those worried about the decline of American culture and values.Heather Hensman Kettrey, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Clemson UniversityAlyssa J. Davis, PhD Student in Sociology, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1990862023-03-03T13:29:15Z2023-03-03T13:29:15ZRepublicans are trying to build a multiracial right – will it work?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512990/original/file-20230301-2006-wjxpt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2399%2C95%2C5563%2C4178&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks during a campaign event on Feb. 16, 2023, in Exeter, N.H.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-nikki-haley-speaks-during-news-photo/1466842331?phrase=haley%20nikki&adppopup=true">Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former Republican South Carolina Governor and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley <a href="https://twitter.com/NikkiHaley/status/1625461899218280448">launched her bid for president recently in a video</a> that began by describing the racial division that marked her small hometown of Bamberg, South Carolina. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, another presumptive GOP candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has continued his crusade against “woke ideology,” most recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/20/nyregion/desantis-visit-nyc-philadelphia-chicago.html">on a tour of Pennsylvania</a>, New York and Illinois, presenting himself as a defender of law and order.</p>
<p>Taken together, these events present a fundamental question about the future of the Republican Party.</p>
<p>Does it continue to move rightward, exciting its base by stoking white racial grievance? </p>
<p>Or does it pursue a multiracial strategy that can expand the party’s reach?</p>
<p>Recent trends in the GOP suggest that it wants to do both – and that indeed the two strategies are not so much at odds as it might appear. </p>
<h2>Right-wing candidates of color on the rise</h2>
<p>In a striking development, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/21/michigan-christian-nationalists-00083251">Michigan Republicans selected</a> in February 2023 a Christian nationalist and election denier as chair of the state party.</p>
<p>This rightward shift of the party is not itself surprising. </p>
<p>What’s striking is that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/20/politics/kristina-karamo-michigan-gop-chair/index.html">Kristina Karamo</a>, a Black woman, was elected over a white male candidate who also had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/18/michigan-gop-chair-karamo-trump/">Trump’s endorsement</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A smiling Black woman stands in front of a group of white men and women." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512983/original/file-20230301-24-mxvpgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512983/original/file-20230301-24-mxvpgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512983/original/file-20230301-24-mxvpgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512983/original/file-20230301-24-mxvpgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512983/original/file-20230301-24-mxvpgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512983/original/file-20230301-24-mxvpgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512983/original/file-20230301-24-mxvpgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kristina Karamo is all smiles as she watches the vote count during the Michigan Republican Convention on Feb. 18, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kristina-karamo-reacts-as-she-sees-more-votes-posted-in-her-news-photo/1247317653?phrase=Kristina%20Karamo&adppopup=true">Sarah Rice/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The same voters who elevated Karamo also cheered <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/01/1077166847/trump-escalates-racist-rhetoric-plays-on-white-grievance-at-recent-rallies">Trump’s supercharged racist rhetoric</a> against Black people, immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims and nonwhite countries more generally during his campaigns and presidency. </p>
<p>And yet Karamo is hardly an anomaly. </p>
<p>While the party has made no substantive changes or moderation to its politics or policies around long-standing racial justice issues, it is slowly but steadily <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2022/0602/GOP-makes-gains-with-minorities.-Will-it-change-the-party">growing more racially diverse</a> in its grassroots base, elected officials and opinion leaders. </p>
<p>In the 2022 midterm elections, for instance, a new Republican majority in the House of Representatives was secured by a number of <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/169366/black-latino-candidates-gop-house">Black and Latino candidates</a> who ran strong races while avoiding the extremist label. </p>
<p>Though the U.S. Senate race in Georgia saw Black GOP candidate <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/07/georgia-senate-runoff-walker-warnock/">Herschel Walker lose</a> to Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, there were seven victorious Black or Latino Republican newcomers to the House, four of whom won seats previously held by Democrats. </p>
<p>Most notable among the growing number of Republican lawmakers of color is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/byron-donalds-house-speaker-political-views-rcna64368">Byron Donalds</a>, a two-term representative from Florida. He <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-distortion-of-martin-luther-king-jr-s-words-enables-more-not-less-racial-division-within-american-society-195177">was nominated by a GOP colleague</a> to serve as speaker of the House during the chaotic several days and 15 rounds of voting that preceded <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/06/1147470516/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-of-the-house-vote">Kevin McCarthy’s election</a> to that role.</p>
<p>Relatively young and new to national politics, these GOP politicians are largely aligned with Trump on substantive issues.</p>
<p>What’s more, none downplayed the issue of race, but rather are using their biographies and experiences of racial discrimination to legitimize their conservative bona fides.</p>
<h2>The GOP race card</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?525936-1/nikki-haley-launches-2024-presidential-campaign-charleston-south-carolina">Haley’s speech</a>, she decried a national “self-loathing” that is “more dangerous than any pandemic” in regard to the country’s racial history. </p>
<p>“Every day we’re told America is flawed, rotten and full of hate,” Haley said. “Joe and Kamala even say America’s racist. Nothing could be further from the truth. Take it from me, the first female minority governor in history.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile, African American <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/02/26/tim-scott-2024-presidential-election/11331016002/">Republican Sen. Tim Scott</a> also appears close to entering the race for the GOP presidential nomination. </p>
<p>Like Haley, Scott uses his own biography to undercut Democratic claims to represent people of color. </p>
<p>“For those of you on the left,” Scott said in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/22/tim-scott-iowa-2024/">February 2023 speech in Iowa</a>, “You can call me a prop, you can call me a token, you can call me the n-word. You can question my blackness. You can even call me ‘Uncle Tim.’ Just understand, your words are no match for my evidence. … The truth of my life disproves your lies.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Black man dressed in a dark suit standing in front of several American flags appears on a television screen" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512985/original/file-20230301-22-3mtp2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512985/original/file-20230301-22-3mtp2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512985/original/file-20230301-22-3mtp2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512985/original/file-20230301-22-3mtp2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512985/original/file-20230301-22-3mtp2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512985/original/file-20230301-22-3mtp2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512985/original/file-20230301-22-3mtp2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Sen. Tim Scott delivers a virtual speech during the 2020 Republican National Convention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/aug-24-2020-photo-taken-in-arlington-virginia-the-united-news-photo/1228207341?phrase=senator%20tim%20scott%20south%20carolina&adppopup=true">Liu Jie/Xinhua via Getty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Neither Haley nor Scott is running as the colorblind conservatives of years past.</p>
<p>Both embrace their racial identities and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/06/24/republicans-say-goodbye-to-the-confederate-flag-and-hello-to-a-new-strategy/">talk openly about racial issues</a> and politics, with little damage to their electoral prospects. Both have won large pluralities of conservative white voters in their states. </p>
<p>But the path ahead is mired with challenges and vexing contradictions. </p>
<p>Will a national GOP electorate that has cheered on a host of demeaning attacks on minority groups from its leadership support the candidacies of figures like Haley and Scott? </p>
<h2>Colorblind conservative voters?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.umass.edu/news/article/new-national-umass-amherst-poll-issues-finds-one-third-americans-believe-great">Polls show</a> that roughly 70% of Republicans believe the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/replacement-theory-isnt-new-3-things-to-know-about-how-this-once-fringe-conspiracy-has-become-more-mainstream-183492">great replacement theory</a>,” a baseless belief that the Democratic Party is attempting to replace the white electorate in the United States with nonwhite immigrants. </p>
<p>Those same conservative voters are consistently motivated by <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-white-victimhood-fuels-republican-politics/">white racial grievance</a> in issues concerning public education, law enforcement, voting rights and affirmative action. </p>
<p>Yet studies also suggest that white conservatives will indeed support candidates of color, not out of a commitment to racial justice or even representation, but because they see it as a way to advance partisan and ideological interests. </p>
<p>A 2015 article in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/poq/article-abstract/79/1/28/2330044">Public Opinion Quarterly</a> presented data showing that these voters “are either more supportive of minority Republicans or just as likely to vote for a minority as they are a white Republican.”</p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/708952?journalCode=jop">a 2021 study</a> showed that under the right conditions, “racially resentful [white] voters prefer to vote for a Black candidate over a white competitor.”</p>
<p>These studies suggest that the Republican electorate is fertile ground for certain candidates of color who can effectively link their biographies to stock conservative accounts of individual uplift, opposition to social welfare – and the demonization of liberalism and liberals.</p>
<h2>Voters of color matter</h2>
<p>How about voters of color? </p>
<p>Will they continue to view the GOP as a racist party inhospitable to their interests? </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html">Exit polls after the 2020 election</a> showed that Trump increased his gains among all groups of minority voters in comparison to 2016, capturing 1 in 4 voters of color nationally. </p>
<p>He won the votes of nearly <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/320903/black-turnout-2020-election.aspx">1 in 5 Black men</a>, and roughly one-third of the Asian American and Latino electorate. </p>
<p>While Republican strategists and candidates are attempting to creatively reframe the relationship of race to modern-day conservatism, none have articulated ideas or policies that directly confront the issues facing a majority of African Americans and other people of color.</p>
<p>Those issues include a <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/young_lawyers/publications/after-the-bar/public-service/racial-disparities-criminal-justice-how-lawyers-can-help/">predatory criminal justice system</a>, the evisceration of <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/liberty-matters-systemic-racism-in-education-and-health-care">funding for health care and education</a>, the existential threats of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220125-why-climate-change-is-inherently-racist">climate change</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/politics/january-6-race-deconstructed-newsletter/index.html">attacks against multiracial democracy</a>. </p>
<p>It’s unclear whether those issues will find a way into conservative talking points.</p>
<p>What is clear is that political identities determine political interests – not the other way around.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199086/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Will the GOP continue to stoke white grievance, or pursue a multiracial strategy that can expand its reach? Recent trends suggest that it can do both at once.Joseph Lowndes, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of OregonDaniel Martinez HoSang, Professor of Ethnicity, Race & Migration, Yale UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1974752023-02-03T13:30:25Z2023-02-03T13:30:25ZCivil rights legislation sparked powerful backlash that’s still shaping American politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506449/original/file-20230125-16-70s0sb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3868%2C2598&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A group of voters lining up outside the polling station, a small Sugar Shack store, on May 3, 1966, in Peachtree, Ala., after the Voting Rights Act was passed the previous year. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/group-of-voters-lining-up-outside-the-polling-station-a-news-photo/3088626?phrase=Voting%20Rights%20Act&adppopup=true">MPI/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For nearly 60 years, conservatives have been trying to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/03/voting-rights-act-democracy/617792/">gut the Voting Rights Act</a> of 1965, the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. <a href="https://jepson.richmond.edu/faculty/bios/jhayter/">As a scholar of</a> American voting rights, I believe their long game is finally bearing fruit.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96">The 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision</a> in <a href="https://www.bunkhistory.org/resources/1027">Shelby County v. Holder</a> seemed to be the death knell for the Voting Rights Act.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/08/15/the-court-right-to-vote-dissent/">In that case</a>, the court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act that supervised elections in areas with a history of disenfranchisement.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court is currently considering a case, <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/merrill-v-milligan-2/">Merrill v. Milligan</a>, that might gut what remains of the act after Shelby.</p>
<p>Conservative legal strategists want the court to say that Alabama – <a href="https://www.naacpldf.org/merrill-v-milligan-supreme-court/">where African Americans</a> make up approximately one-quarter of the population, still live in concentrated and segregated communities and yet have only one majority-Black voting district out of seven state districts – should not consider race when drawing district boundaries. </p>
<p>These challenges to minority voting rights didn’t emerge overnight. The Shelby and Merrill cases are the culmination of a decadeslong conservative legal strategy designed <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/john-roberts-supreme-court-voting-rights-act/671239/">to roll back</a> the political gains of the civil rights movement itself.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A receipt for a $1.50 poll tax paid in 1957 by Rosa Parks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506451/original/file-20230125-22-zpgh30.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A number of Southern states had a poll tax that was aimed at preventing by Black people, many of whom couldn’t afford to pay it. This is a receipt for a $1.50 poll tax paid in 1957 by Rosa Parks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss85943.002605/?sp=2&r=0.026,-0.021,1.01,0.419,0">Library of Congress, Rosa Parks Papers</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Victory – and more bigotry</h2>
<p>The realization of civil and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/07/02/the-civil-rights-act-was-a-victory-against-racism-but-racists-also-won/">voting rights laws</a> during the 1960s is often portrayed as a victory over racism. The rights revolution actually gave rise to more bigotry.</p>
<p>The Voting Rights Act criminalized the use of discriminatory tests and devices, including literacy tests and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/10/21/239081586/the-racial-history-of-the-grandfather-clause">grandfather clauses</a> that exempted white people from the same tests that stopped Black people from voting. It also required federal supervision of certain local Southern elections and barred these jurisdictions from making electoral changes without <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/about-section-5-voting-rights-act">explicit approval from Washington</a>.</p>
<p>These provisions worked. </p>
<p>After 1965, <a href="https://www.crmvet.org/docs/ccr_voting_south_6805.pdf">Black voters instigated a complexion revolution</a> in Southern politics, as African Americans voted in record numbers and elected an unprecedented number of Black officials. </p>
<p>In fact, the VRA worked so well that it gave rise to another seismic political shift: White voters left the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/emerging-republican-majority/595504/">Democratic Party</a> in record numbers.</p>
<p>As Washington protected Black voting rights, this <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/158320/western-origins-southern-strategy">emerging Republican majority</a> capitalized on fears of an interracial democracy. Conservatives resolved to turn the South Republican by associating minority rights with white oppression. </p>
<p>In 1981, conservative political consultant and GOP strategist Lee Atwater recognized that Republicans might exploit these fears. <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/">He argued</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” – that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.“</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘Retard civil rights enforcement’</h2>
<p>It wasn’t just Southerners who aimed to undo the revolution enabled by the Voting Rights Act. </p>
<p>President Richard Nixon helped begin this process by promising Southerners that he wouldn’t enforce civil rights. In fact, in a secret meeting with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/27/us/strom-thurmond-foe-of-integration-dies-at-100.html">segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond</a>, Nixon promised to ”<a href="https://www.amacad.org/publication/past-future-american-civil-rights">retard civil rights enforcement</a>.“ </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three men in suits at a large gathering smoking cigars, clapping and looking happy." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506474/original/file-20230125-11748-j7xsu2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Conservative political consultant and GOP strategist Lee Atwater, center, at the GOP National Convention in Dallas, Aug. 23, 1984, recognized that Republicans might capitalize on white people’s fears of rising Black political power.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RNCCigars/b716a9e732ca4ea39fd610b1faa0171f/photo?Query=Lee%20Atwater&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=51&currentItemNo=11">AP Photo/Ed Kolenovsky</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan also used white people’s <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/">growing fear of African American political clout</a> to his advantage. </p>
<p>Reagan’s administration, according to voting rights expert <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=26493">Jesse Rhodes</a>, used executive and congressional control to reorganize the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>The objective?</p>
<p>To undermine how Washington enforced the Voting Rights Act – without appearing explicitly racist.</p>
<p>One of the Reagan administration’s strategies was to associate minority voting rights with so-called reverse discrimination. They argued that laws privileging minorities discriminated against white voters. </p>
<h2>Undoing progress</h2>
<p>Here’s the background to that strategy:</p>
<p>The years following 1965 were characterized by the <a href="https://jointcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/VRA-report-3.5.15-1130-amupdated.pdf">dilution of Black Southerners’ voting power</a>. Realizing that they couldn’t keep African Americans from voting, Southerners and segregationists resolved to weaken votes once they’d been cast. They gerrymandered districts and used other means that would dilute minority voting power. </p>
<p>African Americans took the fight to the courts. In fact, nearly 50 cases involving vote dilution <a href="https://www2.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12v943a.pdf">flooded the court system after 1965</a>.</p>
<p>Over the course of the 1970s, the Supreme Court met the challenge of <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt14-S1-8-6-6/ALDE_00013453/">vote dilution</a> by mandating the <a href="https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2905&context=law_lawreview">implementation of majority-minority districts</a>. </p>
<p>Conservatives during the early 1980s had become increasingly alarmed by the Supreme Court’s and Department of Justice’s preference for drawing racial district boundaries to give minorities more influence in elections in such ”<a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Majority-minority_districts">majority-minority districts</a>.“ <a href="https://www.democratic-erosion.com/2021/10/24/unpacking-redistricting-are-majority-minority-districts-really-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/">These districts</a> aimed to guarantee that minorities could elect candidates of their choice free from machinations such as vote dilution. </p>
<p>With little regard for vote dilution itself, conservative politicians and their strategists argued that majority-minority districts discriminated against whites because they privileged, like affirmative action policies, equality of outcomes in elections <a href="https://edeq.stanford.edu/sections/section-1-equality-opportunity-and-alternatives/equality-outcome">rather than equal opportunity to participate</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A gray-haired man in a suit walking in front of a lot of marble steps." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506475/original/file-20230125-3412-tih2e4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edward Blum, a longtime conservative legal activist, has brought and won many cases at the Supreme Court rolling back civil rights gains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/edward-blum-a-long-time-opponent-of-affirmative-action-in-news-photo/1437982045?phrase=Edward%20Blum&adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tidal wave</h2>
<p>This strategy paid off. </p>
<p>During the 1980s, Republicans used congressional control, a Republican White House and judicial appointments to turn the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/magazine/voting-rights-act-dream-undone.html">federal court system and the Department of Justice even further right</a>. </p>
<p>By the 1990s, conservatives replaced federal officials who might <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/01/09/proving-his-mettle-in-the-reagan-justice-dept/416680ce-9ee7-485f-86f8-df6570cab56f/">protect the Voting Rights Act</a>. In time, these developments, and growing conservatism within the courts, prompted conservative litigation that continues to shape civil rights laws.</p>
<p>A tidal wave of anti-civil rights litigation, led by <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/supreme-court-edward-blum-unc-harvard-myth.html">a well-funded man</a>, Edward Blum, flooded the court system. Blum sought to undermine the Voting Rights Act’s supervision of local elections and undo racial quotas in higher education and employment. </p>
<p>Blum, <a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Captured%20Courts%20Equal%20Justice%20report.pdf">a legal strategist</a> affiliated with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, helped engineer these now-famous test cases – <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-casemaker-cases/cases-edward-blum-has-taken-to-the-supreme-court-idUKBRE8B30Z120121204">Bush v. Vera (1996), Fisher v. University of Texas (2013) and Shelby v. Holder (2015)</a>. He also orchestrated <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/24/edward-blum-supreme-court-harvard-unc/">two pending cases</a> at the court that could reshape the consideration of race in college admissions, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/20-1199">Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College</a> and <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/21-707">Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina</a>. </p>
<p>These cases, at their core, attacked the rights revolution of the 1960s – or rights that privilege minorities. The argument? </p>
<p>These protections are obsolete because Jim Crow segregation, especially its overt violence and sanctioned segregation, is dead.</p>
<h2>New claim, old game</h2>
<p>Nearly 30 years of Republican or divided control of Congress and, to a lesser degree, the executive office gave rise to increasingly conservative <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/156855/republican-party-took-supreme-court">Supreme Court nominations</a> that have not just turned the court red; they all but ensured favorable outcomes for conservative litigation.</p>
<p>These include the Shelby and Merrill cases and, more recently, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/24/edward-blum-supreme-court-harvard-unc/">litigation</a> that seeks to remove racial considerations from college admissions.</p>
<p>In the Shelby case, the court held that the unprecedented number of African Americans in <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/fifty-years-after-march-selma-everything-and-nothing-has-changed/">Alabama</a> – and national – politics meant not merely that racism was gone, it meant that the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/how-shelby-county-broke-america/564707/">Voting Rights Act is no longer relevant</a>. </p>
<p>These cases, however, have all but ignored <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/165283/suppress-black-vote-jim-crow">the uptick</a> in conservatives’ claims of <a href="https://www.retroreport.org/video/poll-watchers-and-the-long-history-of-voter-intimidation/">voter fraud and political machinations</a> at polling stations in predominantly minority voting districts. </p>
<p>In fact, the rise of voter fraud allegations and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/11/19/true-danger-trump-his-media-allies-denying-election-results/">contested election results</a> is a new iteration of old, and ostensibly less violent, racism.</p>
<p>The Voting Rights Act was not only effective; Washington was also, initially, committed to its implementation. The political will to maintain minority voting rights has struggled to keep pace with the continuity of racist trends in American politics.</p>
<p>The work of protecting minority voting rights remains <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/05/democracy-january-6-coup-constitution-526512">unfinished</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Maxwell Hayter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Conservatives and the GOP have mounted a decadeslong legal fight to turn the clock back on the political gains of the civil rights movement.Julian Maxwell Hayter, Associate Professor of Leadership Studies, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1963692023-01-18T13:38:22Z2023-01-18T13:38:22ZFlorida Gov. DeSantis leads the GOP’s national charge against public education that includes lessons on race and sexual orientation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504060/original/file-20230111-20-2gml9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=712%2C93%2C3457%2C2675&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Florida Governor Ron DeSantis campaigns for re-election during a rally on November 7, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/florida-governor-ron-desantis-campaigns-for-re-election-news-photo/1244594045?phrase=desantis%20governor%20election&adppopup=true"> Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ disdain for “woke ideology” is on full display. </p>
<p>At a January 2023 inaugural event, the governor <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/03/desantis-2024-second-term-00076160">boasted</a> that “Florida is where woke goes to die.” </p>
<p>This is more than political bluster.</p>
<p>In just the past month, DeSantis has stacked the board of the <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2023/01/14/with-new-college-gambit-desantis-aims-recapture-higher-education/">New College of Florida</a>, a well-known liberal arts college, with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/01/07/new-college-florida-desantis-rufo/">right-wing ideologues</a> and has directed universities to report their <a href="https://floridapolitics.com/archives/579062-gov-desantis-administration-surveying-for-crt-dei-in-florida-higher-education/">diversity efforts and critical race theory classes </a> to his office. </p>
<p>So what, precisely, does Desantis – <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/12/14/1142680625/will-desantis-run-2024-president-campaign-trump">a potential 2024 presidential nominee</a> – oppose? </p>
<p>That became clear in December 2022 when multiple DeSantis officials appeared before <a href="https://floridapolitics.com/archives/574045-in-andrew-warren-suspension-trial-gov-desantis-officials-answer-what-does-woke-mean/">a federal judge</a> to defend the governor’s decision to suspend a local prosecutor whom DeSantis had termed a “woke ideologue.” The judge asked Ryan Newman, DeSantis’ general counsel, to define “woke.” </p>
<p>Newman answered that “woke” is “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” </p>
<p>Newman added that DeSantis does not believe systemic injustices exist in the United States. </p>
<p>DeSantis, for his part, has explicitly denied that systemic racism exists – characterizing the notion as “<a href="https://www.thewrap.com/ron-desantis-racism-fox-news/">a bunch of horse manure</a>.” </p>
<p>In my view as a <a href="https://www.bu.edu/law/profile/jonathan-feingold/">legal scholar on race and law</a>, Newman’s explanation was a stark admission. </p>
<p>By his own account, Newman placed DeSantis on the side of injustice. We might call DeSantis an “injustice denier.” Akin to climate change, there is no legitimate academic debate about the reality of systemic racism. </p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://www.stkate.edu/academics/healthcare-degrees/racism-in-healthcare">real</a>. It’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-systemic-racism-in-charts-graphs-data-2020-6#the-unemployment-rate-also-spiked-for-all-racial-groups-in-the-us-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-remains-relatively-higher-for-black-americans-2">pervasive</a>. It’s unjust. No amount of denial can change that – even if it scores political points. </p>
<h2>Political campaign against ‘woke’</h2>
<p>When <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/13/1110842453/florida-gov-desantis-is-doing-battle-against-woke-public-schools">DeSantis</a> and <a href="https://www.manhattan-institute.org/woke-schooling-toolkit-for-concerned-parents">others bemoan “woke indoctrination</a>,” their claim is not that schools should be value-free zones. </p>
<p>Their claim is that schools<a href="https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/2023/01/06/gov-ron-desantis-wants-conservative-overhaul-at-new-college-of-florida/69784941007/"> teach the wrong values</a>.</p>
<p>This should surprise no one. </p>
<p>In the wake of 2020’s <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-floyd-black-lives-matter-impact/">global uprising</a> for racial justice, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/04/08/the-guy-brought-us-crt-panic-offers-a-new-far-right-agenda-destroy-public-education/">right-wing think tanks, foundations and officials</a> launched an open <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory">smear campaign</a> to stigmatize modest efforts to make American classrooms more inclusive and curriculum more comprehensive.</p>
<p>As early as March 2021, one of the campaign’s chief architects, Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, publicly <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/04/08/the-guy-brought-us-crt-panic-offers-a-new-far-right-agenda-destroy-public-education/">bragged</a> about weaponizing critical race theory to <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1479512380400803843">further that agenda</a>.</p>
<p>Rufo further explained that maligning critical race theory through calculated caricature and distortion was an “obvious” element of a “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/19/critical-race-theory-rufo-republicans/">public persuasion campaign</a>” to erode faith in public schools. </p>
<p>Rufo, one of DeSantis’ recent board appointees, has outlined the end goal: “<a href="https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/laying-siege-to-the-institutions/">lay seige to the institutions</a>” and return Americans to a pre-civil rights social order that lacked affirmative commitments to racial inclusion.</p>
<h2>A long history of white resistance</h2>
<p>Proponents often claim that laws and policies designed to restrict classroom conversations about race are <a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/keep-racist-critical-race-theory-ideology-out-k-12-classrooms">necessary to protect</a> mostly white students from <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2021/11/18/kansas-child-death-report-looks-beyond-reps-claim-that-critical-race-theory-shames-white-girls/">emotional discomfort</a>.</p>
<p>Yet over two years into an open disinformation campaign and hundreds of laws designed to suppress “woke” viewpoints, many in the mainstream media still frame anti-racism and anti-anti-racism as competing sides in an educational culture war. </p>
<p>In my view, the culture war framing is odd. </p>
<p>It exaggerates disagreement among typical Americans – most of whom <a href="https://www.historyperceptiongap.us/#points_of_convergence">believe students should learn about racism</a> and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/book-bans-opinion-poll-2022-02-22/">reject book bans</a>. It <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4094443">falsely recasts</a> a top-down political project as a grassroots uprising. And it minimizes the <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-critical-race-theory-florida-college-professors">rising toll</a> on students, parents and educators. </p>
<p>The “culture war” frame also implies Americans are fighting over values, yet rarely makes explicit those competing values. </p>
<p>One thing is clear. </p>
<p>There is little new about this culture war.</p>
<p>It is hard to miss the parallels in rhetoric and tactics between 21st-century anti-anti-racism and 20th-century <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/massive-resistance">massive resistance</a>, when segregationists openly defied federal court orders to integrate public schools.</p>
<p>Past generations have invoked “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/12/05/discriminating-in-the-name-of-religion-segregationists-and-slaveholders-did-it-too/">religious liberty</a>,” “<a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-school-wars-jennifer-berkshire">school choice</a>” and “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-education-gender-identity-0e2ca2cf0ef7d7bc6ef5b125f1ee0969">parents’ rights</a>” to defend the prevailing social order, defund public schools and discredit efforts to redistribute racial power. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of parents and children are holding up posters during a demonstration against teaching race in schools." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504072/original/file-20230111-26-dvn2n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People hold up signs during a rally against critical race theory in Leesburg, Va., on June 12, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-hold-up-signs-during-a-rally-against-critical-race-news-photo/1233449643?phrase=anti%20CRT%20protests&adppopup=true">Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my view, many of today’s anti-anti-racists rehearse the same old rhetoric for similar ends.</p>
<p>Past generations harnessed state power to penalize educators who dared to teach about injustice.</p>
<p>Historian <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-of-education-quarterly/article/hell-is-popping-here-in-south-carolina-orangeburg-county-black-teachers-and-their-community-in-the-immediate-postbrown-era/5440EE784E237EDF8BDD2F2DC59D7C2D">Candace Cunningham recounts</a> one example from 1956 South Carolina.</p>
<p>Two years after <a href="https://www.naacpldf.org/brown-vs-board/">Brown v. Board of Education</a>, South Carolina’s <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/separate-but-equal-south-carolina-s-fight-over-school-segregation-teaching-with-historic-places.htm">white Legislature</a> enacted 14 laws designed to stymie civil rights. </p>
<p>This included a law that required all teachers to swear an anti-NAACP oath – a law designed to target Black educators and “destabilize the civil rights movement,” as Cunningham explains. </p>
<h2>Impact on cultural literacy</h2>
<p>A revival of such measures has occurred since 2020. </p>
<p>In at least 15 states, GOP officials have passed “<a href="https://pen.org/report/americas-censored-classrooms/">educational gag orders</a>” to chill classroom conversations about race, racism and related topics. This includes Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” a portion of which <a href="https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/judge-blocks-floridas-stop-woke-censorship-bill-taking-effect-higher-education#:%7E:text=The%20court%20order%20found%20the,expression%20of%20the%20opposite%20viewpoints.">was enjoined</a> in November 2022. </p>
<p>Given the laws’ design and effect, University of Florida Law Professor Kathryn Russell-Brown has likened this legislation to <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4219891">19th-century anti-literacy laws</a>. </p>
<p>According to free speech advocacy group PEN America, 2022 saw a 250% jump in such <a href="https://pen.org/report/americas-censored-classrooms/">laws</a>, which became more punitive and more likely to target higher education and LGBTQ identities. </p>
<p>Similar policies have accelerated at the local level across the country. </p>
<p>As of December 2022, UCLA’s CRT Forward Tracking Project <a href="https://crtforward.law.ucla.edu/">had identified</a> over 130 school district policies that target anti-racist pedagogy and curriculum.</p>
<p>A related study from <a href="https://idea.gseis.ucla.edu/publications/files/the-conflict-campaign-report">January 2022</a> found that state and local anti-literacy laws affected over 900 districts, accounting for 35% of America’s K-12 students. </p>
<p>Given that 2022 saw <a href="https://crtforward.law.ucla.edu/">more educational gag orders than the prior two years combined</a>, that number is no doubt higher now.</p>
<h2>Academic freedom under state review</h2>
<p>Many of the same GOP officials pushing anti-literacy laws are also actively eroding key safeguards that shield public universities and professors from political interference. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, DeSantis is a <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/06/06/draft-legislation-shows-desantis-plan-control-higher-ed">leading proponent</a> of such efforts to curb university independence. </p>
<p>In Texas, the lieutenant governor <a href="https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in-depth/2022/03/28/421924/patricks-plan-to-eliminate-tenure-at-texas-state-universities-could-have-dire-consequences-experts-warn/">threatened to terminate tenure</a> after the University of Texas’ faculty leadership reaffirmed the value of academic freedom and the right to teach about race and gender justice.</p>
<p>Right-wing groups also have fueled <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rare-move-school-librarian-fights-back-court-conservative-activists-rcna42800">defamatory campaigns</a> against school leaders, teachers and librarians.</p>
<p>Many of the same groups have spearheaded an unprecedented wave of book bans. </p>
<p><a href="https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/">PEN America</a> tallied over 2,500 individual bans from July 2021 to June 2022. </p>
<p>This includes books like “When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball,” which explores how an <a href="https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1605188994203062274?s=20&t=ZbKFuYxKLVGBtOh7KgUDXg">African American athlete overcame physical limitations and racial prejudice</a> to win medals in the 1956 and 1960 Olympics. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Under the words Awake and Not Woke, workers prepare a stage for a conference with conservative Republicans." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504058/original/file-20230111-34767-sj0fal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers prepare the stage for the 2022 meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/workers-prepare-the-stage-for-the-2022-meeting-of-the-news-photo/1238715739?phrase=desantis%20woke%20florida&adppopup=true">Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Experts have attributed the extreme rhetoric accompanying book bans and anti-literacy laws to a rise in <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?524793-1/survivors-club-shooting-activists-testify-anti-lgbtq-violence">threats and acts of physical violence</a>. This includes nearly <a href="https://acleddata.com/2022/11/23/update-fact-sheet-anti-lgbt-mobilization-in-the-united-states/">200 documented anti-LGBTQ+ events in 2022</a> – a twelvefold increase over 2020 – and bomb threats <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/16/us/hbcu-bomb-threats-suspect-reaj/index.html#:%7E:text=Threats%20against%20HBCUs%20peaked%20in,posts%2C%20according%20to%20the%20FBI.">targeting historically Black colleges and universities</a> and other entities <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2022/12/20/unnerving-what-the-tufts-president-said-about-the-schools-3-bomb-threats-before-a-fourth-on-tuesday/">serving communities of color</a>. </p>
<p>Against this backdrop, it is notable that the midterm elections revealed the <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3789333-midterms-indicate-cracking-down-on-critical-race-theory-in-public-schools-wont-win-republicans-many-new-voters/">limitations of anti-CRT and anti-wokeness rhetoric</a>. </p>
<p>But those limitations seem unlikely to alter GOP talking points or the broader assault on public education. </p>
<p>The incoming GOP House leadership has already renewed its pledge to purge schools of critical race theory and “woke ideology.”</p>
<p>To borrow a phrase from the late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, one might conclude that anti-anti-racism embodies a “<a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/fighting-too-much-justice">fear of too much justice</a>.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196369/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Feingold attended UCLA School of Law, where he graduated with a specialization in Critical Race Studies.</span></em></p>The GOP leadership renewed its pledge to resist public education that includes painful discussions on race and racism in America.Jonathan Feingold, Associate Professor of Law, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1971122023-01-03T18:55:05Z2023-01-03T18:55:05ZSpeaker of the House faces political peril from member deaths and resignations – especially with a narrow majority<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502982/original/file-20230103-90208-fzjg6u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C9%2C3129%2C2223&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy wants to be speaker of the House. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/house-minority-leader-kevin-mccarthy-speaks-to-reporters-news-photo/1454009418?phrase=Kevin%20McCarthy&adppopup=true">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/29/politics/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-bid/index.html">arm-twisting</a>, <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a42355661/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-multiple-ballots/">dealmaking</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/29/battleground-republicans-vote-mccarthy-speaker-00075846">vote hunting</a> around Kevin McCarthy’s quest to be named House speaker have put on full display the fact that razor-thin majorities in both the House and the Senate are becoming a fact of life at the federal level.</p>
<p>In multiple ballots conducted on Jan. 3, 2023 to elect the speaker of the House, McCarthy <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/01/03/us/house-speaker-vote">failed to get the required number of votes</a>. Additional balloting is expected in the race for speaker.</p>
<p>Slim margins might make for <a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/12/30/speaker-race-headed-toward-dramatic-floor-election/">dramatic television</a>, but they create legislative and institutional uncertainty that has very real consequences for how Congress is run and how policy gets made. </p>
<p>Because the GOP’s 10-seat House majority is so small, McCarthy has had to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/02/politics/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-struggle/index.html">placate the moderate wing, the right wing and the far-right wing</a> of his conference – all at the same time – in his quest for the speaker’s gavel. </p>
<p>The GOP’s slim majority may actually get slimmer. This is because of seat vacancies caused by the early departures of members of Congress. These vacancies happen with regularity, and could have major impacts on the Republicans’ legislative agenda over the next two years. </p>
<p>A slim majority means that the Republican leadership can’t afford to lose support from even small groups of members within their party. But each congressional session, some members depart Congress early, leaving vacancies that can complicate party leaders’ efforts to placate their competing factions or blocs. Imagine, for example, that a moderate Republican member dies or resigns in the next few months. Will that person be replaced with another moderate? A Trump-aligned Republican? A Democrat? </p>
<p>With such a small advantage, the potential effect of this replacement is huge – not just for McCarthy, but for Congress as a whole, and the American people, whose lives are affected by legislation passed by Congress.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A flag-draped casket is in the middle of a large, stately hall, surrounded by people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502866/original/file-20230102-22-38d3f6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Visitors file past the flag-draped casket of Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, as he lies in state in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol on March 29, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/visitors-file-past-a-flag-draped-casket-of-rep-don-young-as-news-photo/1239598559?phrase=Don%20Young&adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>How do vacancies occur?</h2>
<p>The 117th Congress, which met from Jan. 3, 2021, to Jan. 3, 2023, set a modern record with 15 vacancies, a rate unmatched going back to the 1950s. This was partly because of six member <a href="https://www.adn.com/politics/2022/03/18/alaska-us-rep-don-young-has-died-according-to-former-aides/">deaths, including Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska</a>, the longest-serving House member at the time. A number of these vacancies occurred in the first days of the 117th, when several Democratic House members, including Cedric Richmond of Louisiana and Marcia Fudge of Ohio, took positions in the new Biden administration. </p>
<p><iframe id="7wXRs" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7wXRs/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>High-profile vacancies in recent history were due to other causes. Some members were forced to resign because of scandal, like Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., who was convicted in 2022 for <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/26/1089034831/nebraska-fortenberry-resigns">lying to the FBI about illegal campaign contributions</a>. Others cut short their current term, leaving Congress after losing their primaries, as <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Cantor_announces_resignation,_effective_August_18">Rep. Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, did in 2014</a>. House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, resigned after facing <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/speaker-john-boehner-retiring-from-congress-at-the-end-of-october-214056">threats of being ousted from leadership in 2015</a>. </p>
<p>And although the 117th was a banner Congress for vacancies, the historical data demonstrates that they happen all the time. Based on my analysis, there are usually at least a handful of vacancies per two-year congressional cycle. </p>
<p>Resignation is the most common reason for departure in recent Congresses. However, at least one member – and often more than one – has died in all but one Congress in the past 70 years. The number of deaths that regularly occur among members is more than sufficient to change how the majority party functions in a closely contested Congress like this one. </p>
<p>This potentially leaves party leaders captive to some particular interest, either in their party or in the opposition party.</p>
<h2>How are vacancies filled?</h2>
<p>Although U.S. Senate vacancies are often – though not always – <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/vacancies-in-the-united-states-senate637302453.aspx">filled through an appointment by the governor of that state</a>, the <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/2021-01-08_IF11722_dcbc4bdca5fddd5b46b49cc06ba113d2ac8d43f0.pdf">Constitution mandates that House vacancies be filled by special elections</a> scheduled by the governor. </p>
<p>These elections usually happen within a few months of the vacancy. What this means is that there are real possibilities for the size of a party’s majority to shrink, or grow, between election years. And even if a majority party shift doesn’t happen, a district could still replace a moderate departing representative with an extremist, or vice versa. </p>
<p>Special elections have received <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/yes-special-elections-really-are-signaling-a-better-than-expected-midterm-for-democrats/">significant focus</a> from the media and the public in recent years. That’s mainly because their results, when compared with the most recent result for that seat, can be bellwethers for how the next set of congressional elections will turn out. </p>
<p>For example, a number of special elections throughout 2022 — <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/31/alaska-palin-peltola-house/">including the Alaska race to replace Young</a> — showed even or Democratic-leaning results compared with 2020, giving <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/24/upshot/midterms-elections-republicans-analysis.html">early indications</a> that the “red wave” many experts predicted would not actually materialize.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Speaker of the House John Boehner, a Republican, announced his resignation from Congress on Sept. 25, 2015, and gave this speech.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>What does this mean for the 118th Congress?</h2>
<p>A vacating member, and the special election that decides a successor, is not just an electoral crystal ball. It can have major implications for the balance of power in Congress; any GOP leader will have to manage these implications. </p>
<p>On the right, there is the <a href="https://www.legistorm.com/organization/summary/128166/House_Freedom_Caucus.html">44-member House Freedom Caucus</a> and, more specifically, the “MAGA Squad” – think Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz and Andy Biggs. To the left, there’s a swath of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/politics/moderate-republicans-kevin-mccarthy-speaker/index.html">more moderate Republicans</a> from such states as New York and Ohio with no intention of letting far-right firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene control the agenda.</p>
<p>These are two factions of Republicans who want vastly different action in the 118th Congress. The moderate bloc understands that, with a Democratic Senate and Joe Biden as president, compromise with Democrats may be necessary for legislative achievement. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the far-right bloc has made other priorities clear, such as relentlessly investigating Biden, his administration and his family. Managing these competing demands will be hard enough for the new House speaker and unexpected vacancies could make the task even harder.</p>
<p>Beyond the tensions among Republicans, Democrats will be ready to pounce on any opportunity to divide and conquer. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/29/us/politics/george-santos-what-next.html">recent revelations</a> surrounding incoming Rep. George Santos, a Republican from New York, who allegedly fabricated huge portions of his résumé and personal story during his campaign, represent one such potential opportunity. If Santos is forced to resign, a Democratic victory in a special election in his Long Island swing district could cut the GOP’s majority from 10 to eight.</p>
<p>Even if special elections don’t change a party’s control over certain seats, vacancies can and will throw the 118th House of Representatives into chaos by shifting the balance of power from one ideological bloc to another. More chaos, that is, than it is already enduring.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Congress that ended on Jan. 3, 2023, had 15 vacancies, a rate unmatched since the 1950s. If that rate continues, whoever leads the now-closely divided House will face trouble.Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1949712022-12-15T18:55:30Z2022-12-15T18:55:30ZA Trump-era law used to restrict immigration is nearing its end despite GOP warnings of a looming crisis at the Southern border<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500788/original/file-20221213-22736-oz0t5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2137%2C77%2C5211%2C4825&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hundreds of asylum-seekers gather on the banks of the Rio Grande to enter the U.S. on Dec. 12, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hundreds-of-migrants-who-left-shelters-in-juarez-yesterday-news-photo/1245569901?phrase=mexico%20immigration&adppopup=true">Jose Zamora/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A key component of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies is currently set to expire on Dec. 21, 2022.</p>
<p>Officially called <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title42/html/USCODE-2010-title42-chap6A.htm">Title 42 of the U.S. Code</a>, the little-known law was established initially in 1944 to prevent the spread of influenza and allow authorities to bar entry to foreigners deemed to be at risk of spreading the disease. </p>
<p>In March 2020, on the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, then-President <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/29/immigration-title-42-biden/">Donald Trump invoked the law</a> to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>But Trump and his advisers had another <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/03/us/coronavirus-immigration-stephen-miller-public-health.html">goal</a> as well – closing the U.S.-Mexico border and restricting the number of new immigrants.</p>
<p>Indeed, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/politics/title-42-migrants/index.html">ruled in November 2022</a> that the Trump administration’s implementation of Title 42 was “arbitrary and capricious,” blamed the CDC for failing to come up with reasonable alternatives and reluctantly extended the November expiration date to Dec. 21 to allow the Biden administration to prepare for the increase in cases filed by asylum-seekers.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/ernesto.cfm">immigration researcher and expert on international borders</a>, I have followed border crossing trends and the effects of Title 42. </p>
<p>In my view, the end of Title 42 will not weaken border security. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/desantis-abbott-using-open-border-myth-to-justify-moving-migrants-rcna48844">Nor will it mean that the U.S. has “open borders</a>” or that we will have a crisis in border states, as many conservative politicians and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/rise-migrants-border-title-42s-future-remains-unclear/story?id=95156907">commentators</a> claim. </p>
<h2>More than a million migrants expelled</h2>
<p>While the Trump administration was reluctant to impose federal lockdowns or mask mandates at the start of the pandemic, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/08/26/fact-check-and-review-of-trump-immigration-policy/?sh=2688d3be56c0">it was aggressive</a> in its use of Title 42 to close the border to people fleeing from persecution who have the legal right to make their asylum claims. </p>
<p>As written, <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title42/html/USCODE-2010-title42-chap6A.htm">Title 42 of the U.S. Code</a> allows for the “suspension of entries and imports from designated places to prevent spread of communicable diseases.” </p>
<p>In practice, the law enabled U.S. law enforcement officers to immediately deny entry to asylum-seekers and other migrants.</p>
<p>During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/04/27/key-facts-about-title-42-the-pandemic-policy-that-has-reshaped-immigration-enforcement-at-u-s-mexico-border/#">around 51% of the people</a> encountered at the border were immediately expelled or put into deportation proceedings as a result of Title 42. </p>
<p>U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that over <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters">1 million people</a> were denied entry under Title 42 alone in each of the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years.</p>
<p>In October 2022 alone there were more than <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters">204,000 encounters</a> along the U.S. southern border and over 78,400 expulsions under Title 42, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.</p>
<p>After being sent back, asylum-seekers and migrants often try to enter more than once and are counted separately each time by the authorities. This <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-number-of-encounters-at-the-southern-u-s-border-does-not-mean-what-the-gop-says-it-means-191144">inflates the counts</a> of encounters at the border significantly.</p>
<h2>The number of border encounters may decline without Title 42</h2>
<p>In the short term, I would expect to see that the end of Title 42 will mean an increase in the number of asylum applications being processed, and the federal government has said it is prepared for a surge. </p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mayorkas-maintains-dhs-plan-title-42-end-despite-fears-new-migrant-wave-southern-border">Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas</a> has said repeatedly that he has a six-point plan in place to cope with the expected immediate surge in numbers when Title 42 is lifted.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Thousands of people are lined up near a concrete barrier." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500798/original/file-20221213-21230-fa7efg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500798/original/file-20221213-21230-fa7efg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500798/original/file-20221213-21230-fa7efg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500798/original/file-20221213-21230-fa7efg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500798/original/file-20221213-21230-fa7efg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500798/original/file-20221213-21230-fa7efg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500798/original/file-20221213-21230-fa7efg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Migrants traveling in a caravan of more than 1,000 people wait in 2022 at the U.S.-Mexico border to file for political asylum in the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/migrants-travelling-in-a-caravan-of-more-than-a-thousand-news-photo/1245562490?phrase=mexico%20immigration&adppopup=true">Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my view, after some months, the lifting of Title 42 will actually result in a decrease in the official number of border “<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-number-of-encounters-at-the-southern-u-s-border-does-not-mean-what-the-gop-says-it-means-191144">encounters</a>,” because fewer people will be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/22/immigration-border-biden-trump/">counted multiple times</a> and the traffic jam created by the border closure to asylum-seekers will eventually ease.</p>
<p>Both Republicans and a few Democrats want to keep Title 42 in place, at least temporarily, to stem the flow of migrants across the U.S. border.</p>
<p>For example, Sens. John Cornyn, Republican from Texas, and Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia, and Texas Reps. Tony Gonzales, a Republican, and Henry Cuéllar, a Democrat – among others – have appealed to President Joe Biden <a href="https://thehill.com/latino/3773715-bipartisan-lawmakers-call-on-biden-to-extend-title-42/">to extend Title 42</a>.</p>
<p>What these lawmakers do not say is that Title 42 was originally designed to prevent the spread of a highly contagious disease – not to deny people their legal right to make a claim for asylum in the U.S.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194971/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ernesto Castañeda does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Title 42 has triggered criticisms from immigration advocates and public health experts. But some still want to keep it in place and delay accepting asylum-seekers.Ernesto Castañeda, Associate Professor of Sociology, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.