Jacob S. Rugh
@jakerugh.bsky.social
Raised on Chicago's South Side. My research has appeared in The Atlantic, 538, The Guardian, KSL, NYT, NPR, Split Ticket, Salt Lake Tribune & Supreme Court cases.
I’ve been screening our documentary with organizing communities in the South. So far, the organizers mention data centers first at every single event. From racial justice orgs to old school activists who don’t usually think about tech policy. This has legs.
Republican power grabs in Kansas and Missouri are going down in flames with 18-25% of votes reported so far. Missouri's Amendment 4 aimed to make citizen-initiated constitutional amendments practically impossible. Kansas' Amendment 1 was designed to flip the state Supreme Court to ban abortion
Love the new @fiftyplusone.news midterms forecasts! fiftyplusone.news/forecast/house
fiftyplusone.news
First came framing loan caps as protecting students by pressuring universities to keep costs down, with the likely outcome of pushing low-income students out of school. Here’s another policy framed as “helping,” but again premised on exclusion-- protecting students from "low-return” jobs
The New Republic@newrepublic.com · 2d agoPresident Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v
New podcast 🎙️ I sat down with @jakerugh.bsky.social to go through his data on Utah's political shift. Utah has swung D+24 since 2004—more than any other state. Utah GOP registration is down ~4,700 YTD; Dem registration is up ~9,700 Full conversation: utahpolitics.news/podcasts/why...
Why Utah has swung further left than almost any state since 2004
In the latest episode of Special Session, BYU sociologist Dr. Jacob Rugh breaks down the data behind Utah's political shift, and why he doesn't think it's just about Trump.
utahpolitics.news
Progressive LA Mayoral Candidate Nithya Raman told Vanity Fair that her main difference with DSA is on housing. www.vanityfair.com/story/nithya...
I don’t know enough about modern sampling methodology to have much of an opinion but I will note: Quinnipiac uses old fashioned random digit dialing with human interviewers. CNN’s survey uses a high quality online panel. Both just found Trump’s approval at a record low. Iran War restart is going bad
Josh Marshall@joshtpm.bsky.social · last wk.Trump down to 32% approval in new Q poll. poll.qu.edu/poll-release...
Donald Trump's net approval has reached a new low today in our tracker. His net approval sits at -24.1. The previous low was -23.7, achieved on May 27. fiftyplusone.news/polls/approv...
Imagine if you mailed the IRS a check to pay your taxes, but they left their mail unopened for years and then arrested you for failure to pay taxes. That’s effectively what ICE is doing to increasing numbers of people now; people out of status only because of GOVERNMENT delay.
Absolutely heartbreaking letter from the mother of Alex Pretti, six months after his murder by ICE agents. How is it possible that we still haven’t seen even a hint of justice for such a heinous crime?
The Trump Republicans have broken the constitutional order. It’s still possible to fix it but to do so we need to acknowledge the first thing It turns out that oligarchy is incompatible with the Constitution the same way slavery was. But it can also be ended.
tony romm@tonyromm.bsky.social · 2w agoNEW: In a stunning admission, the Trump administration admitted in court documents that it canceled billions in energy grants to states "based solely" on politics -- and whether that state was represented by Democrats and backed Harris in 2024. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...
One of the most successful pedestrian streets in the world, the Strøget in Copenhagen, was filled with cars until a 2 year pedestrianization pilot project in 1962. The opposition argued “no cars means no business,” but the street has been a massive retail success, the city’s busiest shopping street.
Not collecting data doesn't stop discrimination, it facilitates it. Reminds me of John Roberts saying "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race" in a decision that undermined the ability of school boards to implement desegregation policies.
Jess Calarco@jessicacalarco.com · 2w agoWhen power is rooted in disinformation, data become a threat. apnews.com/article/eeoc...
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to not deport a witness in the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by a federal immigration agent earlier this month in Houston. bit.ly/4weFC0S
Houston ICE shooting witness can't be deported, judge says
The order applies to one of the three passengers in the van Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was driving when he was fatally shot by ICE. Lawyers are seeking the men’s release from detention.
bit.ly
ICE just published updated detention statistics for the first time since early April. As of July 11, ICE was detaining 65,765 people. www.ice.gov/detain/deten...
Detention Management
ice.gov
That might be the best defensive tournament of all time by Spain. 1 goal conceded is nuts.
SCOOP: A 28-year-old man running from “an encounter” with federal immigration agents at a gas station in St. Augustine, Fla., was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer on Tuesday morning, according to a state highway patrol spokesman.
Man in Florida Fatally Hit by Truck While Fleeing ICE, Official Says (Gift Article)
Details about what exactly happened at a gas station in St. Augustine before the man was hit were unclear Tuesday.
nytimes.com
Spot on here by @marceliusb.bsky.social SCOTUS majority commits following racial fallacies 1) Individualistic fallacy (racism is not a system) 2) Fixed (racism never evolves/not a continuum) 3) Legalistic (need 'smoking gun'/prove illegal racism) 4) Ahistorical (past doesn't matter, only present)
Marcelius Braxton@marceliusb.bsky.social · 3w agoTheir model: 1) Racism is largely individual not systemic. 2) Racism only exists if it’s egregious. 3) Racism is only egregious if it’s outlandish/one explicitly states their intent to be racist. 4) Even then, it’s probably just words that won’t extend to action, and they didn’t *really* mean it.
A report on the ground from the ICE shooting in Biddeford that should make every parent in this country lose their minds:
it has not even been seven days since the last time ICE agents killed someone, then claimed without evidence that the person had "weaponized" their car, and also were not wearing body cameras
ICE-involved shooting in Biddeford leaves young man dead
The incident happened Monday morning near Pool Street.
wgme.com
Scholarly folks who have ever received federal funding: today is the deadline for public comment on proposed revisions that will decimate our national research capacity and replace expertise with political whim. Please consider throwing in your 2¢. See below for some useful links and encouragement.
⚠️UTAH VOTER REGISTRATION UPDATE Dems cross big +10K new active voters threshold 🔵+10,003 Democratic (+4.2% YTD) 🟣+5,302 Unaffiliated (+1.1%) 🔴-4,192 Republican (-0.5%) Again, this is in UTAH! 2026 trends like no other year this past decade 👀🌊
Jacob S. Rugh@jakerugh.bsky.social · 2mo agoUtah Change in Active Voters by Party 2026 YTD 🔵DEM +9,582 🟣UNA +5,665 🔴REP -2,207 Beyond new voters, local Democratic caucuses in March likely spurred Unaffiliated and Republican voters to switch their registration. Something is definitely happening here in Utah. This is unlike any other year.
I wrote about Florida Governor DeSantis' getting rebuked by the 11th Circuit for his tyrannical (and unconstitutional) "Stop WOKE Act." Hopefully, this will serve as a warning to other GOP states (but I doubt it). www.ms.now/opinion/flor...
Florida's so-called Stop WOKE Act gets the legal rebuke it deserves
Victor Ray: Ron DeSantis' loss in court is a win for education
ms.now
All 3 men inside of the van with Lorenzo Salgado Araujo “‘reiterated that there were never any ICE agents in front of the van…They came in and started shooting from the sides.’” www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...
Migrants who saw man killed by ICE in Houston say he did not ram officers
Three men who were in the vehicle alongside Lorenzo Salgado Araujo are contesting the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the fatal shooting.
washingtonpost.com
The fact that I have read more than one story about a biking advocate being killed by a car makes me want to scream.
David Zipper@davidzipper.bsky.social · 4w agoThis morning a driver struck and killed Louisa Gag, a biking advocate and transportation planner. Gag had coauthored a Vision Zero Action plan: visionzeronetwork.org/wp-content/u...
