Gadarian Speaks With NBC News About the Policy Divide Between Blue and Red States
September 20, 2025
NBC
Red and blue states in the U.S. are increasingly diverging on key policy issues such as abortion, gun laws and vaccines, leading to starkly different realities for residents depending on where they live.
Following recent Supreme Court rulings and shifting federal guidance under the Trump administration, Republican-led states like Florida have rolled back vaccine mandates and loosened gun laws, while Democratic-led states such as New York and California have formed alliances to create their own health and vaccine guidelines.
This growing divide has expanded into other areas like immigration and education, highlighting deepening political polarization in state governance.
“States are supposed to be a laboratory for experimentation. What’s interesting about this moment is that [some] states are now a laboratory for what they perceive to be a hostile federal government,” says Shana Gadarian, Merle Goldberg Fabian Professor of Excellence in Citizenship and Critical Thinking.
From the Democratic perspective, she says, “states like Massachusetts and New York aren’t just working together to just stock up on Covid vaccines. They’re going to make their own recommendations, because they don’t trust the federal government. …You see this kind of battle against the federal government.”
On the GOP side, she says, “a lot of the things that we would put under health and safety have now—because they’re wrapped up in things like individual choice and how much regulation we should have—moved kind of into the Republican side as things to stand against.”
Read more in the NBC News article, “The policy divide between blue and red states keeps widening.”
Related News
Commentary
Dec 3, 2025
Commentary
Dec 2, 2025
