Alexander Theodoridis, Associate Professor of Political Science at UMass Amherst, is quoted in an opinion piece in The New York Times asking if the political center in America is disappearing. He says, “If policy were the central focus of voter preferences, there very well could be support for a centrist movement. Public opinion data tell us that, policy-by-policy, there is a density of voters with center-left preferences, [but] our politics, as currently structured, is not primarily about policy positions. The zero-sum, identity and affect-based partisan polarization that dominates American politics today mixes with our institutions to make it difficult for a centrist movement to get off the ground.” (The New York Times, 3/24/21)