The campaigning is over. Today millions of U.S. voters go to the polls. They will elect a president, fill a third of the Senate seats, and vote for all 435 House members. Voters will also choose state representatives, judges, and other officials, and will have their say on a host of local referendums.
Today in the podcast, I’m talking to David A. Hopkins, a political scientist at Boston College, about what the brutal 2016 election campaigns mean for the country.
He’s the co-author of the definitive textbook Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics. In September, he and Matt Grossman published Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats, which turns out to be highly relevant for understanding the widening gulf between the worldviews of Trump supporters and Clinton fans. The two political parties they’re voting for are like night and day when it comes to views on democracy, truth, and the party’s role in the political process.
Hopkins shares what’s surprised him most this campaign season. He helps make sense of the divided America that’s come to light during this grim election year. And he lets us know what to look for once the first results start rolling in tonight.
Production by Romanee Rodriguez and Marc Chavannes. Editing by Romanee Rodriguez.
—Translated from Dutch by Laura Martz and Erica Moore
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