Miles Parks

Hey there.

It's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Miles Parks.

I cover voting.

And today on the show, a political trend that experts say is killing bipartisanship and making government work worse.

Ashley, you have some reporting this week that shows that this trend was actually really heightened by the redistricting arm race that we saw last year.

Can you explain all this?

Got it.

So like super red districts or super blue districts as opposed to the districts that actually have a chance of going either direction.

Why does that actually matter?

OK, so, yeah, this you have fewer competitive districts heading into this election cycle, and that creates what experts call the primary problem, which is that primary voters kind of have an outsized influence over the general feel of the American government right now.

Can we zoom in on that a little bit more?

Actually, I know there are numbers about like the amount of voters that actually elect Congress.

Do you have any up to date numbers on the extent of the primary problem?

Right.

I mean, Sam, you saw this firsthand when you were a local reporter in Georgia, right?

This kind of decline of competitive districts happening in real time.

I do feel like this is one of those things that just impacts every aspect of our politics.

Well, I don't understand why we're not talking about every single day.

I mean, even Sam, every single Congress story is impacted by the fact that the lawmakers voting on every policy are mostly in safe districts and mostly only accountable to their primary voters.