HAVE A GREAT SUMMER — With Memorial Day weekend marking the unofficial start of summer, Americans are starting to embark on their travel plans. Over half of Americans — 55 percent — say they plan to take at least two nights away from home on a vacation this summer, according to a new survey from the Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. But as America has become more politically and culturally polarized, Mileah Kromer, the director of the IoP at UMBC, told POLITICO Nightly that she expected the survey would reveal different vacation preferences for Republicans and Democrats. In fact, the opposite was the case. The study showed few gaps between each party on questions of the types of travel they prefer, across beach trips, road trips, romantic getaways or family-friendly vacations. The main notable difference was travel to a city; 39 percent of Democrats said they are considering visiting an urban place this summer, compared to just 16 percent of Republicans. When diving into details, differences may arise: There are some specific beach destinations, for example, that might be more popular among Republicans or Democrats. (Palm Beach vs. Rehoboth Beach, for example.) But even the fact that there’s generally very little difference in preference for one type of vacation over another was a surprise to Kromer, especially as members of each party increasingly divide over everything else: what television shows or movies to watch, what newspapers to read, where to shop for groceries. It could be as simple as this: Everyone likes getting some time off from work. The results of the survey, though, also point to the possibility that many American cultural differences are constructed out of thin air rather than preordained based on where someone grew up or their political affiliation. To better understand the study and what it tells us about America today, Nightly spoke with Kromer right as summer begins. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What was the most surprising part of the poll results? I’ve long been fascinated by these big partisan differences over seemingly non-political things, like baby name preference, where you shop, what car you buy. And so that’s the reason we did this poll — I wondered if attitudes towards summer vacation are as pronounced. What stood out to me was that in the midst of all the polarity in these seemingly non-political areas, you really don’t see it too much here. This is one thing that Americans share: their attitude towards summer vacation. Frankly, I was expecting to see some bigger partisan division, because it seems like it’s everywhere these days. Where did you expect that partisan division to manifest itself? I noticed a fairly stark division in interest in urban vacation results, with Democrats much more likely to vacation in cities than Republicans. Certainly, urban tourism wasn’t surprising at all. But I expected there to be some greater division among questions like where Democrats and Republicans plan to take a vacation, just because there are so many lifestyle choices that are so heavily polarized. Everyone still wants to go to the beach. What our survey can’t tell you is some of the more granular questions. So, every beach vacation is not the same. The funniest or most politically pertinent point there is that Rehoboth Beach is not the same as Palm Beach, where Mar-a-Lago is. How much have decisions that we’ve considered non-political for a long time become imbued with politics more generally? The first book that I read on this that really opened my eyes to this phenomenon was The Big Sort by Bill Bishop [which was published in 2008]. Bishop talks about how people are clustering in like-minded communities, and that the more you put yourself in a partisan silo, everyone around you begins to like the same things that you like. It really intensifies when you’re doing that with geographic location. So, with neighborhoods, even at the county level, there’s fewer and fewer of what we’d consider swing counties. And when people don’t spend time around folks with a diversity of opinions, they start to get a huge confirmation bias. People are now not only self-selecting into where they live, they’re also self-selecting what media they consume and what they buy. That leads to an increase in specialized products directed at one group or another. In the case of vacations, then, why has this behavior stayed similar when everything else has changed? I’m thinking about that myself. The simplistic answer is everyone likes some time off. If we think about the flow of American culture on a calendar, every summer, school ends. When you have this break, a lot of people really relish the opportunity to take even a couple of days off, away from work, away from the stresses of life, to be with family and friends. I actually think it’s sort of nice that there’s some agreement. There’s always these funny pieces that are something like: ‘How to talk to your uncle or your aunt who you disagree with politically at your Thanksgiving dinner.’ Here’s something that you can talk about — vacation. If you ever want to have a non-political conversation with someone, maybe someone who you know you don’t share any political views with, talk about vacation. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh .
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