Reading path

A tour of the book, one chapter per part

15 chapters in reading order. A path is a way through the book that follows one question; every chapter also stands alone.

1
Party 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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2
Feelings 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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3
The 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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4
The abortion sort
Chapter 4.1 in Part IV, Issue by issue
In the American National Election Studies the gap between Democrats and Republicans in support for always-legal abortion grew from 3.5 points in 1980 to 52.3 in 2024, mostly on the Democratic side, and the General Social Survey shows the same widening.
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5
Racial attitudes and ideology
Chapter 5.2 in Part V, Race and racial attitudes
Among white non-Hispanic ANES respondents, the correlation between racial resentment and conservative self-placement rose from +0.27 in 1986 to +0.66 in 2024, and most of that rise is between the parties rather than among people who share a party.
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6
Confidence in thirteen institutions
Chapter 6.1 in Part VI, Trust, science and democracy
The average gap between Democrats and Republicans in the share with a great deal of confidence in thirteen institutions rose from 4.8 points in 1973-1980 to 6.7 in 2011-2018 and was 9.4 in person in 2022-2024, and the gaps run in both directions.
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7
Left 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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8
Basic values and left-right
Chapter 8.1 in Part VIII, Values beneath politics
People who rate universalism higher place themselves further left in all 18 Western European countries (mean correlation −0.19), but by the 95% interval values sit on their predicted sides of left-right in 4 of 18 post-communist countries and on the opposite sides in 4.
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9
The god gap in America
Chapter 9.1 in Part IX, Religion and morality
The Democratic vote gap between seldom and frequent attenders rose from 5.5 points in the ANES studies of 1972 to 1988 to 21.8 points in those of 2008 to 2020 and was 27.7 points in the 2024 CES.
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10
Nationalization 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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11
Precincts 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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12
Education, ethnicity and the county shift, 2016 to 2024
Chapter 12.7 in Part XII, Demographic axes of the vote
In 2020 to 2024, counties with more Hispanic residents moved further toward the Republicans than other counties did (vote-weighted correlation −0.66, against +0.45 in 2012 to 2016), while the correlation with college share fell from +0.69 to +0.02.
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13
Air pollution and the vote
Chapter 13.6 in Part XIII, Hardship, health and the vote
Tracts with more diesel exposure voted more Democratic in 2020, by 24.8 points per standard deviation of exposure, but only 4.9 points once race, income, education and density are held fixed.
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14
Counties where donors and voters diverge
Chapter 14.7 in Part XIV, The money map
Across counties, donors lean left where the Democratic vote is higher (correlation −0.85, weighted by votes), and 74 of the 98 Democratic-voting counties with right-leaning donors are at least 30% Black.
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15
Party 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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