Democrats Argue Popular Vote, Republicans: Electoral Vote

“Efforts to overhaul the Electoral College, one of the oldest institutions in the U.S. political system, are ramping up as the country moves into the 2020 presidential election cycle,” writes Erin Corbett in Fortune. Senate Democrats have recently introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College, and prominent Democratic presidential hopefuls have argued for its repeal, in favor of a popular vote. Yet at the same time, Republicans have defended the electoral system, likely out of self-preservation. “Some Republicans say that smaller states and more rural states will have less influence in elections that rely only on the popular vote,” Corbett says. Corbett also references a recent PRRI poll that shows that “65 percent of Americans said presidential elections should be decided by the national popular vote, while 32 percent said the Electoral College should decide.”

The Roots of Tucker Carlson’s Attack on Chris Hayes

The Washington Post explores recent comments attacking Chris Hayes’ masculinity by Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Author Philip Bump argues that the comments made by Carlson were not surprising, particularly in light of new research that indicates support for Trump correlated with male insecurity. Bump cites a PRRI/The Atlantic poll that looks at whether people believe society has become too soft or feminine and whether masculinity is under attack. “White working-class men were much more likely to hold both of those views than other groups, including respondents overall and whites with college educations,” Bump writes. “More than 60 percent of that group thought society had become too feminine and 45 percent of white working-class men thought traditional male behavior was being punished.” Bump notes that white working-class men likely supported President Trump in 2016 for these reasons.

Republicans Push Back on Equality Act

Republicans on the House Judiciary committee were unified In opposition to the Equality Act,  Matthew Brown writes in Deseret News because the bill allows transgender women to complete with cis women in sports and federal programs, ultimately creating an unfair advantage for transgender women.  Democrats and expert witnesses have countered this by arguing that it is incredulous that transgender people would transition merely for a sports medal. “This is not what gender identity is about,” Kenji Yoshino, a constitutional law professor at NYU says. Brown cites a PRRI report finding that “65 percent of U.S. adults favor LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections, about one-quarter (23 percent) of those supporters also say people should be able to refuse services to LGBTQ people for religious reasons.”

Major Partisan Divide on Threat of White Nationalism

A new Morning Consult poll finds that white Americans are divided across party on whether white nationalism poses a threat to the country. The poll’s findings show that 59% of white Democratic voters say that white nationalism is a critical threat to the U.S. now and will continue to be in the next ten years. Only 16% of white Republican voters said the same. In the same poll, white Republicans were far more likely to identify Islamic extremism as a critical threat (62%). The authors point to the different responses to these threats may be informed by media consumption. They point to a 2011 PRRI/Brookings poll that found that showed “72 percent of Republicans who most trust Fox News believe that Islam is at odds with American values, compared to 47 percent of all U.S. adults who said the same.”