For next week's look at political institutions.
This touches on both the public opinion and parties chapters.
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We’ve heard it over and over: Democratic candidates win cities. Researchers have tracked the way Democrats have dominated in cities since the ’90s. Politicians bring up America’s deep-blue cities constantly, including in stump speeches and in every debate over the Electoral College. Even FiveThirtyEight couldn’t resist joining in: In December, Galen Druke and I showed how America’s cities and tightly packed suburbs shifted toward Democrats in the most recent midterm election. The more densely populated the place, the more Democratic the voters.
But just because Republicans aren’t winning in cities doesn’t mean that no Republicans live there. Much has been made of the country’s urban-rural political divide, but almost every Democratic city has Republican enclaves, especially when you think about cities as more than just their downtowns. It’s a sign of our polarized times that these Republicans aren’t evenly distributed across the city, of course. But it’s also a sign of how centuries of American history have shaped and continue to shape where we live — and who our neighbors are.
