A bigger government vs. a bigger life

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No. 377 | October 10th, 2025

📊 Public Opinion

New polling from the brand-new Searchlight Institute asks what the political parties want for your life. And Republicans lead Democrats on virtually everything — from getting a good job, to owning a car, to marrying and having kids.

Part of this is that a happy, abundant life has become Republican-coded. That’s long been true for marriage — and it’s also true about all aspects of material well-being and upward mobility.

It also reveals that for many voters, politics isn’t about policies or programs — but about who is most likely to produce good things in your own personal economy or family life that don’t necessarily have any connection to a government program.

When you ask voters, it’s no contest whose position they prefer on expanding the safety net to help lower and middle class Americans: the Democrats. The reason that they still lose working class voters, though, is that government programs only have a small impact either way on people’s …