Taking the political temperature of red states
The Saturday after the 2016 presidential election, Harvard colleagues Theda Skocpol and Kathy Swartz, along with their husbands, met up at a favorite local diner for breakfast. As usual they discussed life and the NFL, but they also talked about what the vote might mean for America’s political future and for federal policies that had been central to the Obama administration. Before the meal was over Skocpol and Swartz had crafted a research idea: travel to eight counties in four swing states — North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin — and talk to people on the ground to find out. Later that day they recruited Harvard sociologist Mary Waters and soon their plan was in motion. Within weeks, they had raised seed funding from the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy Schooland organized a group of Harvard undergraduate and graduate students to help. They then took their show on...