Scholar Predicts Government Reform Could Motivate 2020 Voters

Themes for the off-and-running 2020 election campaign will clearly include standbys like the economy and immigration as well as fresh controversies over President Trump’s conduct and governing style. But new research on voter attitudes toward Washington suggests a new alignment that could place government reforms at the center of the two-party clash, according to Paul C. Light, professor of public service at New York University. “Although Democrats were more likely than Republicans to favor very major reform under Trump, the differences were much less significant,” he wrote in an analysis of polls published Thursday by the Brookings Institution. New survey numbers show that “Trump divided the nation on major issues such as immigration, identity, and Obamacare, but brought the nation together on the demand for reform.”