ENDNOTES

Of all nations, by far, the United States maintains the most reliable collations of election information. These are the foremost compendiums, which were indispensable for this book.

• The Almanac of American Politics (Columbia Books and Information Services). This magisterial compilation—the current edition runs to 2,043 pages—has been available since 1972. For example, it can tell you that in Illinois’s 15th congressional district, 80 percent of its Trump voters turned out for the 2018 midterms, whereas 95 percent of its Democrats did.

• Statistics of the Congressional Election (Office of the Clerk, US House of Representatives). This collation goes back to 1920, is free online and is easy to use. It also includes complete figures for presidential and congressional races. Among other things, it aggregates the 2018 votes for New Jersey’s twelve congressional districts, so we can see that the Democrats’ total was 1,856,819, against 1,298,664 for the Republicans.

• US Election Atlas, also free and online, has voting figures for president, senator, and governors, all the way back to 1824. (That year, Andrew Jackson defeated John Quincy Adams, 151,363 to 113,141.) More recently, you can learn that in all 2018 races for governor, Democratic candidates got 46,298,981 votes, against Republicans’ 43,476,882.

• Ballotpedia. This celebrated service provides figures that can’t be found anywhere else. For example, a Texas special election, where only 35,024 people showed up. Or the lineup on the state supreme courts whose members run on partisan labels.

• United States Election Project. Every two years, this University of Florida service computes the precise size of the potential electorate. In 2018, altogether 235,714,420 citizens were legally qualified, of whom 118,581,921 did vote. We can learn that the 2016 pool was 8.4 percent larger than in 2008, so that tweaking is needed if we want to compare the two turnout totals.

• National Election Pool, managed by Edison Research. This service, which has been operating since 2004, interviews people as they leave the polls. It focuses on personal characteristics, to show how voters divide for candidates and parties. Its findings are on CNN’s website. In 2018, its sample ran to 75,836, more than enough for reliable results, even for smaller subgroups. Hence we learn that 54 percent of unmarried men opted for Democratic candidates, as did 73 percent of Latina women. Also reported was that 61 percent of Republicans said they owned guns, while 64 percent of Democrats don’t.

• Two polling organizations warrant inclusion: the Pew Research Center and the Public Religion Research Institute. Both are notable for posing questions that delve beneath the surface. Thus the Pew Center asked people if they felt colleges “have a negative effect” in this country. Among Republicans, 64 percent agreed, versus 21 percent of Democrats. The Religion Institute prepared a statement saying that white people now suffer more discrimination than other groups. With Republicans, 74 percent agreed, against 30 percent of Democrats.

Chapter 1

1. Alan Abramowitz, “The Trump Effect,” in Larry Sabato and Kyle Kondrik, The Blue Wave (Roman & Littlefield, 2019).

2. For reams of important information, see Stanley Greenberg, R.I.P. G.O.P. How the New America is Dooming the Republicans (Thomas Dunne, 2019).

3. “Birth Expectations of US Women,” National Center for Health Statistics, October 2016. A third of women aged 35–44 who are now childless do not expect to have one. Nearly half of women with one child do not expect to have another.

4. See Richard Hasen, Plutocrats United (Yale University Press, 2016): “money does not buy votes or elections.”

5. “Somebody Just Put a Price Tag on the 2016 Election,” Washington Post, April 14, 2017.

Chapter 2

1. There’s an exception. By custom, if not inertia, vice presidents have had automatic access to the nomination. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush all took this route in the GOP. So did Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, and Albert Gore among the Democrats. Only Johnson won a second full term. Michael Pence can dream.

2. See Jane Mayer’s indispensable Dark Money (Penguin Random House, 2016).

3. Jonathan Allen and Amie Barnes, Shattered (Crown, 2017).

Chapter 4

1. But see “An Examination of the 2016 Electorate, Based n Validated Voters,” Pew Research Center, August 9, 2018, which found that of 2012 Democrats, only 5 percent had switched to Trump, while 4 percent of 2012 Republicans turned to Clinton.

2. See Tim Alberta, American Carnage (Harper Collins, 2019): “It wasn’t that Trump turned out historic numbers of blue collar whites, he simply won a far higher share of them than past Republicans had . . . These voters had been trending toward the GOP for a generation, and Trump’s candidacy was a known accelerant.”

Chapter 6

1. See Sam Wang, “Democrats would have had to win the popular vote by 7 percentage points to take control of the House the way that districts are now,” “The Great Gerrymander of 2012,” New York Times, February 2, 2013. Plus Charles Cook, “Demographic developments cast doubt on whether even a 2006-size wave would enable Democrats to win control of the House at any point in this decade,” “The GOP Keeps Getting Whiter,” National Journal, March 16, 2013.

2. “To Beat Trump, Focus on Corruption,” New York Times, November 3, 2019.

3. Ashley Rae Goldenberg, “Only 37% of Americans Can Name Their Congressman,” Media Research Center, June 5, 2017.

Chapter 8

1. “How Different Groups Voted in Alabama,” Washington Post, December 13, 2017.

2. There was a reason for miniscule turnouts in Texas: the winner would serve for only six months. In fact, primaries had already been held to choose candidates for oncoming full term.

3. See the lament of John Whitbeck, Virginia Republican chairman: “We spend a ton of money trying to get Trump voters engaged, and [they] didn’t vote in these off year elections.” “Under a Cloud, Trump is Still Unyielding,” New York Times, December 20, 2019.

Chapter 9

1. Theodore Arrington, “Gerrymandering the House, 1972–2016,” Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, November 26, 2018.

Chapter 11

1 Of the twenty current senators from the ten smallest states, twelve are Republicans and eight are Democrats.

2. See David Wasserman, “In 2020, it’s possible Trump could win 5 million fewer votes than this opponent, and still win a second term,” NBC News, July 19, 2019.

Chapter 12

1. “What’s stronger than a Blue Wave?” New York Times, November 29, 2018.

2. See Andrew Hacker, “US House Elections are Equally Unfair,” Bloomberg Politics, January 24, 2019.

3. Chief Justice John Roberts for the Republicans: “We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.” Quoted in “Court, Ruling 5–4, Gives Green Light to Gerrymander,” New York Times, June 28, 2019.

Chapter 13

1. It wasn’t always this way. From 1932 through 1994, Democrats controlled the Senate for fifty of those sixty-two years. Even popularly elected Republicans—Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush—didn’t have a supportive upper chamber through all of their tenures.

Chapter 14

1. “State Supreme Court Elections,” Ballotopedia, 2019. In the states’ 49 seats, Republicans have 32 and Democrats 17. The courts in Texas and Alabama are totally Republican, while New Mexico, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia have Democratic majorities.

2. In an earlier oral argument, Chief Justice Roberts dismissed proposed remedies as “a bunch of baloney” and “sociological gobbledygook.”

Chapter 16

1. Still, the 2018 midterms had Democrats ending with only 47 percent of all state seats, despite winning 55 percent of two-party votes nationwide. See annual compilations by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

2. See Jill Lapore’s deft exegesis in These Truths (Norton, 2019): “Either abortion was murder and guns meant freedom, or guns meant murder and abortion was freedom.”

3 Alan Abramowitz, The Great Alignment (Yale University Press, 2018).

Chapter 17

1. Jason Le Miere, “Is Trump Republican?” Newsweek, September 7, 2014.

Chapter 18

1. The Pew Research Center asked people if it bothered them “a lot” that some wealthy people don’t pay their fair tax shares. Of Democrats, 79 percent said they were, while 37 percent of Republicans were not. On whether they felt business corporations make “too much profits,” 72 percent of Democrats felt that way, and 38 percent of Republicans didn’t. “Growing Partisan Divide Over Fairness of the Nation’s Tax System,” April 4, 2019.

Chapter 19

1. “Americans’ Views on Masculinity,” Pew Research Center, January 23, 2019.

2. “Prevalence of Obesity Among Adults and Youth, 2015–2016,” National Center for Health Statistics, October 2017.

Chapter 20

1. “Should abortion be legal or illegal in most or cases?” Pew Research Center, October 2018.

2. Ed Stetzer, “Pro-Choice Evangelicals?” https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2012/november/morning-roundup-11512-pro-choice-evangelicals-president.html.

3. Southern Baptist Convention Resoluton on Abortion. St. Louis, Missouri, 1971. http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/13/resolution-on-abortion.

4. James Unnever, “God Imagery and Opposition to Abortion and Capital Punishment,” Sociology of Religion. Vol. 71, 307–377.

Chapter 21

1. “Do You Personally Identify as LGBT?” Gallup, May 2018.

2. Gallup’s question, posed in May 2018, was: “Do you think marriages between same sex couples should or should not be recognized by the law as valid and with the same rights as traditional marriages?”

Chapter 22

1. See Nancy Isenberg, White Trash (Penguin Random House, 2016).

Chapter 23

1. The president apparently shares this sentiment, having been heard to say, “laziness is a trait in blacks. I really believe it.” Quoted in John O’Donnell, Trumped: The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump (Simon & Schuster, 1991).

2. See Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (Routledge, 1995).

3. “Births: Final Data for 2018,” National Vital Statistics Reports, November 2019.

4. “How Americans See the State of Race Relations,” Pew Research Center, April 9, 2019, which prepared the statement, “There is too much attention paid to race and race relations in our country these days.” Among Republicans, 75 percent agreed, while only 21 percent of Democrats did.

5. The Pew Research Center asked white respondents if they felt that “blacks are treated less fairly in hiring, pay, and promotions.” Of white Democrats, 72 percent agreed, versus 21 percent of white Republicans. “Race in America,” April 2019.

6. “One Nation Divided Under Trump,” Public Religion Research Institute, 2017. American Values Study.

7. The Public Religion Research Institute prepared this statement: “Immigrants are invading our country and replacing our culture.” Among Republicans, 63 percent agreed, against 29 percent of Democrats. “Fractured Nation: Widening Partisan Polarization and Key Issues in 2020 President Elections,” October 2019.

Chapter 24

1. Only seven members took part in this case. The vacancy due to Justice Scalia’s death had not yet been filled, and Justice Kagan recused herself because she had worked on the case when she was Solicitor General.

2. Justice Alito added, “The University of Texas can pick and choose which racial and ethnic groups it would like to favor.”

3. Clarence Thomas concedes that he entered Yale Law School under a preferential program. Here’s how he put it in My Grandfather’s Son (Harper Collins 2007): “minority students were admitted under the same standards as these . . . privileged white kids . . . from wealthy families, or had parents who’d gone to Yale.”

4. Richard Reeves and Christopher Pulliam, “No Room at the Top,” Brookings Institution, February 2019.

Chapter 25

1. “The Growing Partisan Divide in Views of Higher Education,” Pew Research Center, August 18, 2019.

2. Pew Research Center, “Republicans’ Views on Evolution,” January 2014.

3. “Partisan Flash Points in Public’s View of Global Threats,” Pew Research Center, July 30, 2019.

4. Also see Gallup’s March 2015 report titled, “College Educated Republicans Most Skeptical of Global Warming.”

Chapter 26

1. See Stephen Witt, “Big Guns,” New York, November 14–27, 2016 : “Somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of Americans owned guns . . . 3 percent owned more than half the country’s guns . . . on average, 17 different firearms.”

2. “CBS News Poll: American Attitudes toward Gun Violence.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 5 Dec. 2017, www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-poll-americans-attitudes-to-gun-violence-sandy-hook-newtown-anniversary/.

3. “Where Democrats and Republicans Agree, Differ on Gun Policy,” Pew Research Center, June 23, 2017. Some other owners are Donald Trump, with a DT Heckler & Koch revolver, and Lindsey Graham, who keeps an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. “GOP Candidates and Mass Shootings,” New York Times, August 3, 2015.

4. Quoted in Craig Whitney, Living with Guns (Public Affairs, 2012).

5. “Deaths: Final Data for 2017.” National Vital Statistics Reports, June 2019.

6. Michael Nutter quoted in New York Times, “Daily Gun Violence Echoes Across U.S.” May 23, 2016

7. See note 2 above. Also see the 2018 CNN exit poll showing that 77 percent of Democrats support stricter gun controls, and an exactly equal 77 percent of Republicans don’t.

Chapter 27

1. “Senate Defeats Treaty 49 to 35,” New York Times, March 19, 1920.

2. Quoted in William Nester, The Jeffersonian Vision, 1801–1815 (Potomac Books, 2013).

3. Federalist No. 36.

4. Federalist No. 11.

Chapter 28

1. Megan McArdle, “The Politics of Prevarication,” Atlantic (August 2009).

2. “Six Million Lost Voters,” The Sentencing Project, October 2006.

3. For oral arguments, see “Supreme Court Weighs Ohio’s Purge of Voting Rolls,” New York Times, January 11, 2018. For the decision, see “Supreme Court, in 5-to-4 Ruling, Upholds Ohio’s Bid to Purge Voter Rolls,” New York Times, June 12, 2018.

4. For sources of license figures, which are still relevant, see Andrew Hacker, “The Price of Being Black,” New York Review of Books (September 25, 2008).

5. Rudy Mehrbani, “Heritage Fraud Database: an Assessment,” Brennan Center for Justice, September 2017. Also see Ari Berman, “Texas’ Voter Registration Laws are Straight Out of the Jim Crow Playbook,” The Nation, October 6, 2016.

Chapter 29

1. Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (Regnery, 1953).

2. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Dent, 1910). Originally published in 1790. For the best current analysis, see Joel Aberbach, Understanding Contemporary American Conservatism (Routledge, 2017).

3. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass (Penguin, 1994). Originally published in 1872.

4. Alexander Hamilton, op.ed. column in The Daily Advertiser, October 1787.

5 Speech by Theodore Roosevelt, in Provincetown, MA, August 1907. Speech by William Jennings Bryan in Chicago, at the Democratic National Convention, July 1896.

Chapter 30

1. V. O. Key Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy (Knopf, 1961).