Striking New Data About Young Voters Should Alarm Trump and the GOP

Greg Sargent at The Washington Post writes about trends among young voters: in the midterms 2018, youth turnout exploded, in 2020, young voter turnout was critical to Trump’s defeat, and in the 2022 midterms, youth participation curbed the alleged red wave. The generation’s increasingly progressive positions on a wide range of issues are starting to make some in the GOP anxious about the long-term impact on swing states. PRRI data finds that at least 6 in 10 Americans of all age groups say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, with young Americans ages 18 to 29 showing the most support at 68%.

Federal Court Blocks Biden Rule Limiting Asylum for Migrants

At the LA Times, Hamed Aleaziz reports on U.S. District Judge Jon Tigaron’s decision that the Biden Administration’s new border policy is “contrary to law” because it presumes people at the southern border are ineligible for asylum. Advocates for immigrants have criticized the policy since it took effect in May and celebrated the ruling. Following the decision, the Justice Department moved quickly to file an appeal noting it “disagrees” with the court’s ruling. Earlier this week, the Justice Department also sued Texas Gov. Greg Abbottover a floating barrier installed on the Rio Grande to try to stop migrants from crossing into the U.S. from Mexico.

The Grim History of the Courthouse in Jason Aldean’s New Music Video

Claretta Bellamy from NBC discusses the history of the Maury County Courthouse featured in Jason Aldean’s music video for “Try That in a Small Town.” When the video received backlash for being filmed on the site of a lynching, where a Black teenager, Henry Choate, was hanged in 1927, Aldean replied that “there is not a single lyric in the song that references race.” Robert David Bland, an assistant professor of history at University of Tennessee, said the nation’s history of lynchings is often buried and suggested adding markers to the courthouse, along with other lynching sites, to bring awareness to the history of racism throughout the state. PRRI has found that 75% of Americans support efforts to reconfigure or reimagine public spaces so they better represent everyone in their community.

The Church of Group Fitness

The New York Times’ Jessica Grose writes that in the wake of a mass exodus from organized religion, some people have found community and meaning in the unexpected arena of group workouts. David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, has done research that found when people do a synchronous activity together, they are more sensitive to the plight of other people in the room, and more likely to help them if they ask for help. Other research on group dancing has shown that moving together increases feelings of group bonding and can even raise one’s pain threshold. PRRI findsthat nearly 1 in 3 Americans overall (29%) say religion is not important, a 10% increase from a decade ago.

What’s Buzzing?

Read PRRI’s full report “Religion and Congregations in a Time of Social and Political Upheaval” survey here. We are only 60 people away from hitting 1K followers on IG! Help us get there.