Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Bipartisan 'good government' trio win Virginia legislative primaries

Bipartisan 'good government' trio win Virginia legislative primaries

Virginia Sen. Emmett Hanger (center) receives the Unity Award from Unite America and its state affiliate, Unite Virginia.

Three candidates who emphasized collaboration and democracy reform have triumphed in hotly contested Virginia legislative primaries.

The bipartisan trio of off-year victories Tuesday are a small but emblematic sign that such campaigns can succeed despite the highly polarized and partisan nature of politics at all levels of government.


The notable winners are likely to cruise to election November because each of their districts is safe for their parties. Two are Democrats running for open and solidly blue seats in the state House, Suhas Subramanyam in the Washington exurbs and Martha Mugler in the Hampton Roads area. The other is a two-decade veteran Republican who represents conservative areas north of Charlottesville in the state Senate, Emmett Hanger.

Another longtime GOP incumbent running on similar reformer themes, state Rep. Chris Peace from outside Richmond, declared victory but so did his rival and the winner will likely be determined in court.

The campaigns of the four were elevated to prominence because they were the only legislative candidates endorsed by Unite Virginia, a state affiliate of Unite America, which seeks to elect "candidates who put people over party." The group praised them all for their commitment to reform — all support proposals to turn political mapmaking in the state over to a bipartisan commission, for example — and a commitment to working with politicians of the other party.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Unite Virginia's Matt Scoble emphasized Hanger's efforts to advance an anti-gerrymandering bill in Richmond as evidence he was a "pragmatic and effective legislator."

Subramanyam, who worked in the Obama administration, and Mugler, a Hampton school board member, were both singled out for their interest in bipartisanship. Additionally, Subramanyam campaigned for government transparency, better campaign finance reform and a more fair voting system.

Unite Virginia's goal is not to pick candidates based on ideology, Scoble said, but "to make the system more functional and bring more governance to the people."

Read More

Women voting
Edmond Dantès

Election anxiety: Voters are no better off now than they were in 2020

Reid-Vanas is a clinical therapist at, and founder of, Rocky Mountain Counseling Collective.

New research by Rocky Mountain Counseling Collective reveals that American voters are already experiencing more election anxiety in 2024 than they did on Election Day 2020 (typically the day of highest election anxiety). The findings come from analyzing the Household Pulse Survey, a collaboration between the Census Bureau and federal agencies.

At the height of the 2020 election, just over half (51 percent) of surveyed Americans reported experiencing anxiety.

Keep ReadingShow less
‘Stories about the way the nation is organized are dividing us’: A conversation with Richard Slotkin

‘Stories about the way the nation is organized are dividing us’: A conversation with Richard Slotkin

Berman is a distinguished fellow of practice at The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, co-editor of Vital City, and co-author of "Gradual: The Case for Incremental Change in a Radical Age." This is the 11th in a series of interviews titled "The Polarization Project."

Is the United States on the brink of a civil war? Few people are better placed to answer that question than historian Richard Slotkin.

Slotkin, an emeritus professor at Wesleyan University, has devoted his career to the study of violence and American history. In an award-winning trilogy of books (“Regeneration Through Violence,” “The Fatal Environment,” and “Gunfighter Nation”), Slotkin explained how the myth of the American frontier — the idea that violence against a racialized other must be employed to conquer the wilderness and make way for civilization — has been used to justify government action across the history of the United States.

Keep ReadingShow less
Tim Walz speaking at a rally

The Dignity Index scored politicians, such as Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, on their language.

Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images

Bipartisan citizens panel issues new Dignity Index scores

UNITE, a nonprofit created to ease the country's political divisions, on Sept. 20 released the second round of scores from its national citizen's panel analyzing political speech. The latest results offer support for founder Tim Shriver's idea of a political "dignity strategy."

"When our political parties use the contempt strategy — demonizing their opponents to energize their supporters — it has an unintended effect," said Shriver, who founded UNITE in 2018. "It turns away the voters they need to win. The candidate that can treat the other side with dignity has a better chance of winning the swing voters who may decide this election."

Keep ReadingShow less
"Swing state" sign under a cutout of Pennsylvania
gguy44/Getty Images

Election Overtime project prepares Pennsylvania media for Nov. 5

A new set of complementary tools designed to support accurate reporting of contested elections will be unveiled by the Election Reformers Network and other election law experts on Wednesday.

The Election Overtime project will provide journalists covering Pennsylvania’s 2024 general election with media briefings by election specialists; guides for reporting on election transparency, verification processes and judicial procedures; and an extensive speakers bureau. The briefing is designed for journalists but is open to the public. Register now.

Keep ReadingShow less