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Contents
The Public Mind

    Type to search. Planned chapters match by title only.

    Reference

    Changes

    Chapters opened, revised and corrected.

    This page lists what readers can see change: chapters opened, chapters revised, and corrections. Each entry gives the date and the chapter, and a correction is stated as a correction. A chapter that changes after it opens also shows an updated date in its byline.

    Every chapter is currently a draft. A draft is readable and prints its numbers from data files, and its figures and estimates may change while the analysis is checked and rebuilt.

    Prose revision, October 2026

    The start page, the introduction, the volume descriptions and the eight part introductions were rewritten to lead with the question each one takes up. The openings of the other chapter essays were revised so that each begins from one central comparison. Examples that described imagined rooms, precincts, neighbors or individual voters were replaced with direct comparisons of the groups and places the data measure. The grain table and the list of survey mode breaks moved from the start page to the methods page. No estimate, figure, source or chapter address changed.

    Reading order, October 2026

    The contents were reordered into three volumes, Labels, sorting and partisan feeling, Coalitions and political differences and Votes, giving and places, and eight parts. The main chapters form one numbered reading sequence. Eight drafted chapters became companions, optional readings listed after the main chapter they extend. Planned chapters and sections moved to a research agenda page, and an unnumbered conclusion, Where political alignment holds, is planned. Chapter addresses did not change, and the addresses of the old parts redirect to the new ones. No estimate, figure or fact changed.

    Essays and reports, October 2026

    Every written chapter now has two forms. The essay at the chapter's address is a short narrative built around three or four of the chapter's figures, with a dozen or so numbers printed from the chapter's facts. The report, linked under the dek, carries the full findings text, every figure as a table, every estimate with its interval and sample size, methods, limits, references and provenance, and is also served as Markdown for programs. No estimate, figure or fact changed; the essays were checked sentence by sentence against the chapter text.

    Design and prose revision, October 2026

    The light theme is now white with neutral greys, with the ochre accent kept as the one warm element. Chapter deks were shortened to one finding each, and chapter openings now lead with the principal comparison before the alternative estimates. The part prefaces and the start page were brought up to date with the written chapters, and the start page names the core reading path. The revision is editorial, and no estimate, figure or fact changed.

    Outline revision, October 2026

    The contents were revised after an editorial review. Nine planned chapters were merged into related chapters. Three chapters were retitled: Cohort change in partisan sorting, Distance from the national vote, 1868 to 2024 and Wages, capital and the ZIP code vote. The last of these moved to the part on demographic axes of the vote, the cohort chapter now follows Sort dates by attitude, and the planned chapter on political violence moved to the part on trust and democracy. An unnumbered introduction opens the book, and a reading path covers the core argument in eight chapters.

    Several drafts were revised without changing any estimate. Summaries of the cohort chapter now state that repeated cross-sections cannot follow individuals. The methods page and several chapters no longer say that design-based intervals would necessarily be wider. The gender-gap chapter identifies its World Values Survey comparison as one between left-right groups. Party and place distinguishes its main comparison window from its longer trend window, and the ZIP-area education measure in the wages chapter is described as unresolved because its source definition is undocumented.

    3 October 2026

    30 September 2026