Reading path
The core argument in eight chapters
8 chapters in reading order. A path is a way through the book that follows one question; every chapter also stands alone.
- 1Party and ideology
Chapter 1.1 in Part I, The sort
The correlation between party identification and liberal-conservative self-placement rose from +0.32 in 1972 to +0.72 in 2024 in the American National Election Studies, ended higher on two other surveys, and rose in every cohort, education and region group compared.
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- 2Economic and cultural dimensions
Chapter 7.2 in Part VII, What left and right mean
The correlation between economic and cultural conservatism among American adults rose from +0.10 in the 1984 ANES to +0.51 in 2024, and is +0.23 among adults with the same seven-point party identification.
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- 3Feelings toward the other party
Chapter 2.1 in Part II, Partisan feeling
Partisans' average rating of the other party fell from 48.0 to 20.6 on a 0 to 100 thermometer between 1978 and 2024, while their rating of their own party stayed near 70.5; 34.7% of the fall since 2008 goes with changes in survey mode.
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- 4The income ladder
Chapter 3.3 in Part III, The party coalitions
From 2008 to 2024 the highest income bracket's Democratic share minus the lowest bracket's went from −9.1 to +5.7 points, and by 2024 the middle brackets were less Democratic than either end, but within education groups the 2024 gap includes zero.
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- 5Left and right across countries
Chapter 7.4 in Part VII, What left and right mean
The attitude that left-right self-placement follows most closely differs by country, and across countries the median correlations with economic attitudes, moral attitudes and the importance of God lie between +0.07 and +0.09.
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- 6Nationalization of the county vote
Chapter 10.1 in Part X, The nationalized map
Counties moved more nearly in step in 2020 to 2024 than in any other pair of presidential elections since 1868, with a vote-weighted standard deviation of county swings of 4.5 points against 5.0 in 2008 to 2012, the next lowest.
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- 7Precincts within counties
Chapter 11.1 in Part XI, Below the county line
In 2024, 65.0% of the two-party presidential votes in the sample were cast in precincts decided by 20 points or more, against 57.2% in counties decided by that margin and 56.6% in a simulation that assigns voters to precincts at random.
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- 8Party and place
Chapter 15.1 in Part XV, Place and opinion
Across 12 policy issues, Democrats and Republicans in the same kind of deep county differ by 43.1 points in the share taking the Democratic side, 7.6 times the 5.6-point difference between deep-blue and deep-red counties within a party.
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