Why the Left Loses Elections
The uneven geography of economic development and a “winner-take-all” system make our electoral system stacked against left-wing parties. But that doesn’t mean leftists living under that system can’t still win.
Jonathan Rodden is professor of political science at Stanford University, the director of the Stanford Spatial Social Science Lab, and author of the 2019 book Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide.
The uneven geography of economic development and a “winner-take-all” system make our electoral system stacked against left-wing parties. But that doesn’t mean leftists living under that system can’t still win.