Posts by Melissa Amarawardana
More Than 5 Million General Election Ballots Cast So Far
By Adam Levy, Ethan Cohen and Liz Stark | October 7, 2020 As Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris of California meet in Salt Lake City on Wednesday night for their first and only vice presidential debate, more than 5.4 million Americans have already voted in the general election, according to a CNN and Edison Research…
Read MorePlanners, activists and officials imagine a ‘more equitable’ Buffalo post-pandemic
Caitlin Dewey | October 3, 2020 Western New York is still in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, with dozens of new cases surfacing daily and an unemployment rate hovering above 10%. But for seven hours on Saturday afternoon, a group of nearly 90 local planners, neighborhood activists and government officials gathered online to take stock of the…
Read MoreHow to deal when you and your partner are political opposites
Relationship experts discuss how to navigate dating and relationships in our charged political times. Nicole Spector | September 28, 2020 When Nicole Moore, the CEO and owner of Love Works near San Diego, started her relationship coaching business nearly a decade ago, the issue of politics seldom if ever came up with her clients. Then came 2016, the election year…
Read MorePennsylvania’s election is in uncharted territory with a new rule that rejects ‘naked’ ballots
Grace Panetta | September 25, 2020 For the first time, Pennsylvania is allowing all voters to cast a ballot by mail without an excuse. But the state Supreme Court has ruled that officials must reject “naked” ballots that arrive without an inner secrecy envelope in addition to the outer envelope. While one election official estimated…
Read MoreCould the parents of LGBTQ kids decide the presidential election? Advocates say yes.
Kate Sosin | September 17, 2020 This story was published in partnership with The 19th, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. LGBTQ voters are becoming an increasingly key constituency for presidential candidates. On Super Tuesday, 10% of voters identified as queer, a marked jump from the 6% recorded in the 2018 midterms. But it isn’t just…
Read MoreMillennials and seniors are spurning Trump. Here’s why middle-aged voters are sticking with him.
Alex Roarty | September 14, 2020 Generation Z loathes him. Millennials overwhelmingly back his opponent. And even once-supportive seniors have turned away. As his turbulent re-election bid enters its final phase, President Donald Trump has been hindered by lackluster approval from most generations of voters — with one important exception. In poll after poll of…
Read MoreHigh turnout among his base is unlikely to save Trump
Turnout among all groups tends to rise and fall together. Robert Griffin | September 4, 2020 The lead that former vice president Joe Biden has held over President Trump since he became the presumptive Democratic nominee — confirmed this past week in a number of high-quality post-convention polls — has been almost shockingly stable, given the pandemic,…
Read MoreResearch shows just how much more power White voters wield in local politics
That’s true even when Blacks and Latinos are in the majority By Jesse H. Rhodes, Brian F. Schaffner and Raymond J. La Raja | September 3, 2020 Around the nation, residents in communities large and small have been protesting police violence and systemic racism. The scale of the protests is staggering. Today’s Black Lives Matter movement may…
Read MoreIn These Neighborhoods, the Jobless Rate May Top 30 Percent
By Quoctrung Bui and Emily Badger | August 5, 2020 The economic damage from the coronavirus is most visible in areas like Midtown Manhattan, where lunch spots have closed, businesses have gone dark and once-crowded sidewalks have emptied. But some of the worst economic pain lies in other neighborhoods, in the places where workers who’ve endured the broadest…
Read MoreHow young black voters could break Biden — and why Democrats are worried
Police brutality has spurred young African Americans to take to the streets. But it’s far from clear they’ll go to the polls. ELENA SCHNEIDER and LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ | 06/05/2020 In late January, Black Lives Matter commissioned eight focus groups of young black voters in swing states to drill down on a problem for Democrats since Barack Obama…
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