Political Science Charts & Graphs

Understanding Public Opinon Polls

2010-07-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

Every Intro textbook I've ever read includes a detailed discussion about understanding public opinion polls, with details on the importance of margin of error, random sampling, and question wording. I don't cover this in my own lectures on public opinion (focusing on the formation of opinions instead). But I know teachers who think the one thing they want students to get out of their public opinon lecture is to be good consumers of polls.

To that end, here is a video of National Journal reporter Craig Crawford discussing some of the most basic potential problems with polls--sampling, margin or error, and question wording and order--giving recent real-life examples. Highly recommended.

Marijuana Legalization and the Supremacy Clause

2010-07-19T07:13:00.000-07:00

Federalism is one of the most frustrating lectures for me, in large part because I find it overly dry. I focus on some simple basics in the lecture--what is federalism? why did the Founders choose it? what does the national government do, and what does the state government do.

In that context, I teach the Supremacy Clause. This November, we could get an intersting example of the Supremacy Clause at work. An initiative on the ballot on California this Fall would legalize marijuana in the state.

Or would it? In Sunday's Los Angeles Times, Mark Kleiman argues that the initiative is doomed becasue of the Supremacy Clause:

"There's one problem with legalizing, taxing and regulating cannabis at the state level: It can't be done. The federal Controlled Substances Act makes it a felony to grow or sell cannabis. California can repeal its own marijuana laws, leaving enforcement to the feds. But it can't legalize a federal felony. Therefore, any grower or seller paying California taxes on marijuana sales or filing pot-related California regulatory paperwork would be confessing, in writing, to multiple federal crimes. And that won't happen."

Unfortunately for POL 101 purposes, Kleiman does not say Supremacy Clause, but it's inherent in his argument. California cannot repeal a federal law by itself.

A potential example for your next Federalism lecture.

Public Supports Checks and Balances

2010-07-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

The linger I've taught, the more I've increase my in class criticism of the US Constitution. I've done this partly because I have developed more critiques of our constitutional structure, but more so because it's harder than pulling teeth to get students to criticize it themselves. My Exam 1 essay offers students an opportunity to criticize the Constitution. Hardly any do.

So I'm not surprised to see the results of this Penn, Schoen, & Berland poll on the US Constitution. According to Mark Penn's post, "By 64 to 19, [the American public] endorse the system of checks and balances as necessary to prevent one branch from dominating the government." Americans believe in the Constitution and its principles. I find that my students have trouble contemplating any alternatives, such as parilaimentary systems.

On the other hand, respondents favor a set of populist reforms to the Constituion--population election of Supreme Court justices (51 to 34), direct popular presidential vote (74% in favor), and even national referenda for constitutional amendments (49 to 41).

Penn writes "[t]here is no appetite here for changing to a parliamentary system or eliminating checks and balances that tend to slow down change and require consensus before action. Instead, voters are sending one clear message--they want more direct power...in the hands of the people."

Of course, by supporting checks and balances, they are supporting a system designed to reduce the power of the people to have power.

Cumpulsory Voting

2010-07-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

William Gallston of the Brookings Institute has recently advocated for cumpulsory voting in the United States. He argues that doing so will bring more moderate voters into the electorate, reducing the polarization of the electorate.

Here's the report in which Gallston advocates for cumpulsory voting as part of a larger set of reforms to discourage polarization. For classroom and assignment purposes, it may be easier to use either this article from Miller-McCune, or his interview on the subject on NPR.

I always find cumpulsory voting a worthwhile subject to discuss in participation, as it presents an idea that is common around the world but seemingly anethma to not only American practice but values. But it's problematic to find good readings that advocate one way or the other in an American context.

Proportional Represenation, Python Style

2010-05-06T07:54:00.000-07:00

Explaining proportional representation to American students is difficult, in large part because it's a technical exercise in ballot design, and it's (literally) a foreign concept to them.

You can try to combat both of these through John Cleese's party broadcast from 1989 on behalf othe Liberal/Social Democratic alliance, precursor to today's Liberal Democrats. It's advocacy for proporational representation, but actually goes through the process of what it is and how it works. Put, it's John Cleese, it's funny. Or funnier than you usually get in this genre.

Long and short versions available.

Women Less Likely Candidate Recruiting Targets

2010-03-26T07:54:00.000-07:00

While the number of women who serve in major political office has increased in recent years, women are still underrepresented at pretty much every level of political office. Why? Women are not more or less likely to win office when they run, but are less likely to choose to run. Via John Sides, here are data from Richard Fox and Jennifer Lawless, who find

Highly qualified and politicall well-connected women from both major political parties are les likely than similarly situated men to be recruited to run for public office by all types of political actors. They are less likely than men to be recruited intensely. And they are less likely than men to be recruited by multiple sources.

These data suggest that parties and others who recruit candidates are potentially harming themselves by shrinking the pool of potential candidates for office for no useful reason other than sexism.

Senate Filibusters Gun Rights Amendment

2009-07-22T12:42:00.000-07:00

The Senate rejected a measure that would have allowed people to carry concealed weapons across some state lines. Of course, a majority of Senators voted to allowed cross-state concealed carry, but this is the Senate, where democracy goes to die. Thus, the will of the majority is not enough.

But I digress. Here is a quick back of the envelope calcluation on the vote among Democratic Senators. A key variable for Democrats was the political predisposition of the state. I divided states into three groups--those that vote for Kerry in '04 and Obama in '08; those that voted for Bush in '04 and McCain in '08; and the swing states, those that voted for Bush in '04 and Obama in '08.

Democrats from blue states oppsed lifting the ban, 2 yea votes to 30 nays.
Democrats from purple states were split--8 in favor, 6 opposed
Democrats from red states were strongly in favor of lifting the ban, 10 yeas to 1 nay.

Republicans, not surprisingly, favored lifting the ban, by a 38 to 2 margin.

Congressional Fund Raising

2009-07-18T04:52:00.000-07:00

Does money matter in Congressional elections? For an incumbent, the literature is unclear. The bivariate relationship is negative. Incumbents campaigns spends more money in close elections (playing defense) than they do in landslide elections. A deep methodological debate exists on whether proper methodology can control for this relationship and produce a positive coefficient for incumbent camapign spending.

What is abudantly clear is that more money helps challengers and open seat candidates. The graph is from Charles Stewart's Analyzing Congress. The x-axis is the ration of spending between incumbents and challengers; the y-axis is incumbent's vote share. As challenging campaigns reduce the ratio of incumbent spending, they also reduce the incumbent's vote share.

Congressional campaigns must report their receipts and expenses on a quarterly basis. These reports for the second quarter have just come out. Swing State Project, a Democratic-supporting website that tracks down-ballot races, collects these reports for US House candidates. I'll quote from their observations

Democratic challengers who out-raised Republican incumbents: Ami Bera (CA-03), Stephen Pougnet (CA-45), John Carney (DE-AL), and Charlie Justice (FL-10). (However, it must be noted that Justice's haul was far from impressive.)
Republican challengers who out-raised Democratic incumbents: Van Tran (CA-47), Greg Ball (NY-19), and Bill Russell (PA-12).
Overall, I'm struck by the lackluster sums from many highly-touted candidates on both sides of the aisle. For the Dems, Michael Bond (IL-10), Charlie Justice (FL-10), Paula Flowers (TN-03), and Bill Hedrick (CA-44) in particular will need to step up their game. But many GOP candidates had pretty underwhelming quarters, too: Charles Djou (HI-01), Sid Leiken (OR-04), Jon Barela (NM-01) and Frank Guinta (NH-01) were all well south of $100K this quarter. No doubt the crappy economy is tightening the cash flow for many candidates right now, but these candidates will have to start finding the money sooner rather than later.

Obama at the All Star Game

2009-07-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

One of the more fun topics for me in my Presidency lecture is discussing the American President's combined role as Head of State and Head of Government.

One reason for the fun is that I show the picture at the right of President Bush (43) and Queen Elizabeth before a White House state dinner for her in 2006. The difference in expressions between the two in the photo has always prompted a laugh from my students. Even though he's no longer president, I think I'm keeping the photo for a while. Laughs from our students are too precious a comodity to waste.

The use of the President & Queen photo is designed to highlight that most countries separate the head of state (Queen Elizabeth) and the head of government (the Prime Minister). I then discuss how the Presidency combines these two roles. As head of government, the President proposes policies, signs or vetoes bills, runs the government. Basically, this is the meat of his job, and in doing his job, the President usually pleases some people and displeases others.

Of course, Head of State is primarily a ceremonial role. In it, the president does things that someone needs to do (review and thank troops, honor good works in the country, light the White House Christmas tree, conduct the National Day of Prayer). Last night at the MLB All-Star game in St. Louis, President Obama threw out the game's first pitch to hometown star (and baseball's best player) Albert Pujols. Outside of his delivery, Obama's participation in this--in his ceremonial role as Head of State--looked fabulous. I think I'm going to use these photos next semester.

Health Care Spending

2009-07-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

The big debate in Washington is not over nearly Justice Sotomayor. This week's hearing are mostly performance, and very little debate. No, the big debate is over reforming health care. A battle very much up in the air.

The key issue in health care is costs. Two graphs get to the heart of the matter. The first is from Andrew Biggs at AEI. The graph compares spending on health care for humans (left hand y-axis) to health care for animals (right hand y-axis). The graph shows that over the last 25 years, these two costs have been increasing at a similar rate.

Why are the two so similar. That's a very curious question. Most of us do pay the "true" costs of our health care out of own pocket. We pays co-pays, deductibles, etc. and the insurance company picks up the rest. But most pet owners pay the vet directly, and should thus be more sensitive to the price of goods.

Andrew's conclusion: "This again highlights that the real issue with healthcare may not be the rate of growth but the level of health spending—and the fact that so much of it seems to be wasteful."

Greg Mankiw's conclusion on the chart: "The reason that we spend more [on healthcare] than our grandparents did is not waste, fraud and abuse, but advances in medical technology and growth in incomes. Science has consistently found new ways to extend and improve our lives. Wonderful as they are, they do not come cheap."

Of course, health care technology has been improving across the world. Yet this chart from Matt Yglesias shows health care's share of GDP for every OECD country. The basic conclusion from the chart. The US spends more on health care than any comparable country. And since basically every other country on that chart provides some form or universal health care to its citizens, and the US has upwards of 45 to 50 million uninsured people at any one time, you could argue that Americans pay more for less.

The key questions at the heart of the health care debate are very simple: can we expand health care coverage to cover the uninsured? Can we figure out a way to reduce the costs of our health care system overall?

How Congress Votes

2009-07-13T17:49:00.000-07:00

The key assumption of the median voter theorem is the ideological spectrum. Political preferences follow a line, with the most liberal position on the left, the most conservative position on the right, and the most moderate position in the middle. Voters, candidates, and office holders then align themselves along this spectrum at their ideology.

Where do people align themselves in reality? Now that the Senate has 100 members, we are capable of identifying the position of each Senator on the ideological spectrum. Simon Jackman uses Al Franken's first 12 Senate votes to identify his ideological position.

According to Simon:

Al Franken’s short voting history thus far (12 recorded votes) is reasonably liberal, putting him just to the left of the Demcoratic median, in the neighborhood of Bernie Sanders, Daniel Inouye, and the two NY senators Schumer and Gillibrand. Franken’s underlying ideal point (as revealed by analysis of these 12 votes) places him unambiguously to the left of the other MN senator, Klobuchar.

Talking a look at the entire chart, the most conservative members of the Senate are Coburn (R-OK), then DeMint (R-SC) and Inhofe (R-OK). So Oklahoma clearly has the most conservative Senate delegation. The most liberal Senator is Durbin (D-IL), followed by Whitehouse (D-RI) and Reed (D-RI). So Rhode Island is the anti-Oklahoma (sorry Longhorn fans).

Arlen Specter is also highlighted, as he has voted more liberally as a Democrat than he did as a Republican. Fitting with expectations, Nelson (NE) is the most conservative Democratic Senator, and Snowe is the most liberal Republican. Also worth noting, every Democratic senator is to the left of every Republican Senator.

Public Opinion of the US

2009-07-12T06:45:00.000-07:00

Glass half full or half empty? That's the question raised by a recent poll by WorldPublicOpinion.com. The summary:

"A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll finds that around the world US foreign policy continues to receive heavy criticism on a variety of fronts, even though in 13 of 19 nations most people say they have confidence in President Obama to do the right thing in international affairs."

The good news. The world views our president favorably, as 61% of respondents (non-US) are confidence that Barack Obama will "do the right thing regarding world affairs." So Obama's approval numbers in the world look pretty similar to his approval in the US.

The bad news. The world's public is critical of many policies of the American government. One one in four respondents say that the US "treats us fairly." These views have not changed since the previous poll in 2008.

However, in three counties, our "policy" image has improved--Germany, Nigeria, and Kenya. Unfortunatly, Nigeria and Kenya were the only African countries in the poll, so it's hard to make a general conclusion that our first African-American president (and our first president who has African relatives) has improved our standing throughout the continent. It's not surprising that the US's image has improved in Kenya, the home of President Obama's father. This is a question worth exploring more in the future.

The survey also asked respondents whether the US plays a mainly positive or mainly negative role in the world. The answer: split. 39% said the US plays a postive role; 41% say the US plays a negative role.

The conclusion of the Steve Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org: "Most people around the world seem to have a positive view of the young new captain at the helm of the American ship of state, though many people see this huge ship as still carrying forward domineering policies."

The Partisanship of Scientists

2009-07-11T06:55:00.000-07:00

"Birds of a feather flock together." That is, humans like to be with other humans who are like them. As a result, people with similar characteristics are likely to do the same thing, including live in similar areas, enjoy similar activites, and vote in similar ways.

Pew has recently released a survey examining public opinion on science. In addition, they surveyed a sample of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. One chart in the report examines the differences in partisanship and ideology between scientists and the general public.

The basic conclusion. Scientists are a bunch of crazy lefties. Well, maybe not crazy, but definitely lefty. According to the report

"More than half of the scientists surveyed (55%) say they are Democrats, compared with 35% of the public. Fully 52% of the scientists call themselves liberals; among the public, just 20% describe themselves as liberals. Many of the scientists surveyed mentioned in their open-ended comments that they were optimistic about the Obama administration’s likely impact on science. For its part, the public does not perceive scientists as a particularly liberal group. When asked whether they think of scientists as liberal, conservative or neither in particular, nearly two-thirds (64%) choose the latter option. Just 20% say they think of scientists as politically liberal. However, a majority of scientists (56%) do see members of their profession as liberal."

I would not have expected these numbers to be so strongly toward the Democrat & liberal side. Question we don't have data for, what's the time trend. Were scientists pushed to the left by the policies of the Bush administration, or were they already there, helping to contribute to the hostility between W and "Big Science."

Changing Attitudes on Homosexuality

2009-07-10T15:02:00.000-07:00

The Monkey Cage, center for political behavior on the web, examines how attitudes towards homosexuality have changed over time.

The chart shows answers to the GSS question: "What about sexual relations between two adults of the same sex--do you think it is always wrong, almost always wrong, wrong only sometimes, or not wrong at all?" For the first 20 years of the survey, a vast majority of Americans answered "always wrong."

Around 1990, things started changing, and changing quickly. The number who say homosexuality as "always wrong" declined, and the the number who saw it as "not wrong" increased. One can extrapolate out these results and predict that these lines will cross in the next decade.

Curious to me, why is 1990 the breaking point? What is driving this increase, 21 years after Stonewall, and half a decade after the AIDS crisis reached national attention?

Young Voters, A Change in the Role of Education?

2009-07-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

A set of graphs from Andy Gelman examining the relationship between education (on the y-axis) and McCain vote share (on the X-axis). As you see, the graphs are broken up by age and by race.

Andy's headline is "Democrats do Better Among the Most and Least Educated." Generally, this is true, and this has been true for at least a political generation.

But the most interesting graph to me is the one for Whites 18-29 years. In general, I've been very interested in the young vote, which went 2-to-1 for Obama last November.

Andy's graphs provide more context. Most graphs are humbacked, with Dems doing best at the ends of education spectrum, and the GOP at the middle. For Whites 18-29, the trend is negative. That is, as education increases, so does Obama's vote share. The question these graphs raise for me, will this trend continue as these young voters age, and become a larger part of the electorate.

More on Sarah Palin

2009-07-09T04:23:00.000-07:00

Following up on yesterday's post on Sarah Palin. Her resignation announcement on Friday has set off a raft of polling about her, and analysis of her political prospects.

Who would vote for her? Her appeal, not very surprisingly, is quite partisan. Mark Blumenthal charts three different polls of Palin favorability. Despite asking different questions to different universes, the results are pretty much the same. Republicans give Palin approvals around 70%, independents around 45%, and Democrats around 20%.

Robert Jones and Daniel Cox go back in time to analyze Palin and her effect on the 2008 Republican ticket. Using a post-election survey by Public Religion Research, they show that 14% of all respondents said Palin made them more likely to vote for the Republican ticket, and 24% said that she made them less likely to do so. They chart reactions to Palin by religious faith. White evangelicals were (by 2-to-1) more likely to vote for the GOP ticket. But detrimentally to Republican electoral efforts, Palin had a negative effect among two key swing groups, white Catholics and independents.

The third chart is from Charles Franklin, who also looks back at the 2008 election. Palin's selections as McCain's running mate brought many questions about her qualifications. Many pollsters asked voters about Palin's question, and Franklin tracks these responses over time. Upon her nomination in late August/early September, Palin was viewed as qualified by by a plurality of voters. But quickly, doubts about her increased, and by late September a majority of voters found her unqualified for the job she was seeking. This percentage of skeptical voters only increased over time.

What do these charts tell us about Palin's appeal. At the moment, it is strong among her own political base. Republicans have a favorable impression of her. But her appeal is limited. Democrats do not like her, which is not surprising. But independents and key swing groups are skeptical of her. One thing they are skeptical of is her qualificaitons for office. If Palin is running in 2012, she has lots of time to address these perceptions, but if she does not change these perceptions, her chances in 2012 are very small.

Palin 2012?

2009-07-08T12:58:00.000-07:00

As we all know, Sarah Palin announced on Friday last week that she is resigning as Alaska's governor. This announcement set off a furious debate about why. Put me in the camp of those who think that the Friday resignation was the first press conference in the Palin 2012 campaign.

And if Palin in running, an important question is who is going to vote for her. Ross Douthat observes:

"In a recent Pew poll, 44 percent of Americans regarded Palin unfavorably. But slightly more had a favorable impression of her. That number included 46 percent of independents, and 48 percent of Americans without a college education.

That last statistic is a crucial one. Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama."

I think the "perfect foil for Barack Obama" analysis is provocative and interesting. But the first part of this quote is more problematic.

John Sides graphs out the data, and argues:

"That 7-point gap between the views of the college educated and the high school-educated implies a tiny class cleavage at best. Douthat’s rendering of Palin is not reflected in how the public sees her."

But a perceptive commenter at the Monkey Cage pushes John one step further.

"...is the graph for Palin. Obviously, Republicans have much more positive feelings toward her than do Democrats. But the key question is, does education matter?

The short answer is: yes, but only for Democrats, and then only somewhat."

The graph is below. I'm a little more persuaded than John that thiere is something going on with class, or education in Palin evaluation. There is a sharp (and apparently significant) drop in Palin favorables among well-educated Democrats.

To me, this may not be persuasive that Palin's appeal is class based. But it seems indicative to me that something about Palin really turns off well-educated Democrats. On a personal level, Palin has always felt unfamiliar to me in an way that no other major national politician has. She's not like me, and that hurts her in my eyes. Do other well-educated Dems feel the same way?

The Political Blogosphere--Mapped

2009-07-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

The link is to a "map" of the political blogosphere. I saw a demonstration of this site by Linkfluence at the recent Personal Democracy Forum. The blogosphere is "mapped" by tracking the links between various political website.

What are the uses of the map? One can track how particular websites connect with other websites, much of which creates the "feedback loop" of liberals talking to liberals and conservatives talking to conservatives that has become so familiar by now.

Second, the two charts on this page allow you to track over time what topics and personalities are getting the most attention in the political blogoshere. Note the spike for Sarah Palin last Friday after her resignation press conference, and the spike for cap-and-trade during the House debate over Waxman-Markey.

Party Coalitions, Updated

2009-06-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

An update on yesterday's post on race and party coalitions. Nate Silver notes that the Republican Party has always been the white party. Nate's graph on the right shows how the percentage of presidential votes each party has received from whites.

A couple of notable points.

1.) In the 9 elections in the graphy, whites provide Republicans nearly all of their votes.

2.) The slope is what's most remarkable here. The white share of Republican votes has declines only 7.% over the 32 years under study here. The white share of Democratic votes has declined by 42%. Of course the white share of the American popultation and the electorate is declining. Republicans must make substantial inroads with minority communities to return to a majority party.

3.) Nate titles his post "GOP Has Always Been Dominated by White Voters." Well, as political scientists, we are attuned to the word always. Always in this case goes back to the 1860s, when African-Americans first gained the franchise. At that time, they voted for Republicans. In most Southern states, the Republican Party was a party of freed slaves, carpterbaggers, and Union sympathizers. This was obvioulsly not a party dominated by white men, especially conservative white men.

Party Coalitions

2009-06-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

Political parties are of course broad coalitions, encompassing varying members of hetrodox views. Still, modern American political parties have become more homogenous as the electorate has polarized into truly liberal and conservative parties.

Gallup has released numbers from its May tracking polls today, assessing the coalitions of the two parties. Among those who identify as a Republican, 63% are white conservatives. Only 9% are minorities.

Democrats have a very different coalition. 19% of self-identified Democrats are black, 11% are Hispanic. 65% of Democrats are white, though the vast majority of these are liberals or moderates. In short, the two parties have very different coalitions.

What are the implications of these current coalitions. Two things stand out to me from the chart. Most commentary I've seen on this chart today has focused on the lack of minorities in the Republican Party. The minority vote will only continue to grow, and Republicans must increase their standing with minority voters, especially Hispanics.

Second, my view of this chart is that independents look more like Democrats than they do like Republicans. 27% of independents are minorities, closer to the Democrats (36% minority) than the Republicans (11% minority). Independents are one-quarter white conservatives. Republicans are majority white conservatives (63%), while these voters make up only 12% of Democrats.

Supreme Court & Personal Experience

2009-06-01T05:57:00.000-07:00

The biggest controversy so far about President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is her comment in a 2001 speech that "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who has not lived that live."

Beyond the racial politics controversy, this comment is causing a stir because it contrasts with the argument that judges are to be neutral arbitrators, applying the law without regard to their own personal views or values. Most political scientists are skeptical that such neutral arbitration really takes place in the difficult cases of the Supreme Court. In other words, personal experiences help shape judges views of cases and the constitution. Most Supreme Court cases involve different legal perspectives on precedent and the constitution, and judges must sort through these conflicting perspectives.

Burt Solomons has an excellent article in today's Washington Post on this topic. He makes two arguments. One, the vagueness of the Constitution makes conflicting interpretations an inevitability. Two, the personal experiences of Supreme Court justices play a vital role in shaping the judicial philosophies of justics. Solomons gives several examples of how experiences shape constitutional preferences for justices. He pays particular attention to the New Deal court, and the famous 1937 "switch in time that saved nine."

If you are looking for contemporary readings to assign on the Court, this piece is recommended.

Public Mood Across Time

2009-05-29T05:56:00.000-07:00

What is the state of American public opinion. One measure is that done by Jim Stimson, who aggregates poll results across a year to determine the public's mood. The focus of Stimson's measure is demand for government, which has ebbed and flowed across the last 55 years.

In 2008, and in the last few years, demand for government has increases. Not surprisingly, the party of government (the Democrats) have won large elections. But Stimson's measure of mood moved counter-cyclically. During Democratic administrations, moods moves down (away from demand for government services). During Republican administrations, it moves up.

2009-05-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

Generation replacement is a key theory to explain changed in public opinon over time.

One clear example of this trend in current politics is issues regarding gay rights. Younger voters are more supportive of gay rights on pretty much every measure than older voters.

Here are data from a May 7-10 USA Today/Gallup survey on gay rights issues. A clear generational divide exists on gay marriage. Seniors are the most opposed. As age declines, so does opposition to gay marriage. Most notably, young Americans have little problem with gay marriage. By a 59-37 majority, Americans age 18-29 approve of gay marriage.

The results show a clear generational divide on the issue. More importantly, they show that in the future, gay marriage is likely to become more popular.

What Do MOCs Do

2009-05-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

The American Prospect profiles two of Congress's youngest members, Tom Perriello of Virgina and Aaron Schock of Illinois. The articles give a good sense of what members of Congress actually do on a daily basis, and how district based pressures can affect a member's sincere preferences.