Schultz on the Dec. 19, 2025 episode of “Access to Democracy.” Source: Access to Democracy on YouTube
Schultz spoke to the Optimists about political trends over the last 50 years, describing how politics moved away from the center and towards opposite ends of the spectrum
By Sharon Hood
The Optimists’ Club of Roseville hosted Hamline University political science professor David Schultz, Ph.D., June 12 as their monthly speaker.
Schultz is the author of more than 45 books and 200 articles on American election law and the relationship between media and politics, as well as a four-time Fulbright Scholar. He can be seen locally on frequent occasions on “Almanac”, a long running local political interest television program on PBS every Friday evening.
At the Optimists’ Club, Schultz focused on making sense of Minnesota and national politics, comparing 50 years ago to today.
According to Schultz, social media and big money that rewards the extreme voices have most drastically changed political trends in the last half century.
In the 1970s, Schultz explained, the trends of liberal and conservative outlooks ended in a statistical bell curve, with most Americans converging to the middle. The Congressional hearing and impeachment of President Richard Nixon following Watergate was bipartisan.
As a result, Schultz said, the ideologies of following presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were in the center of that curve as well. In 1976, 120 House representatives came from swing districts, and most policies and legislation were bipartisan. In Minnesota, Gov. Rudy Perpic (DFL) was pro-life and his later successor, Arne Carlson, then a Republican, was pro-choice. Both Carlson and U.S. Senator Dave Durenberger, also from that era, are no longer Republican, Schultz said.
During the Reagan era, Schultz said the bell curve became bimodal, which is where we are now. Parties now nominate people within the center of their own party, not the center of the country’s political alignment.
With the bimodal curve, the political parties are heavily disciplined and ideological. Instead of 120 swing seats, now there are only 30-40 in the House. In the Senate, there are currently seven swing seats in play.
Swing voters today express themselves by either “voting or not voting,” Schultz said. According to Schultz, these swing voters are college-educated suburban women, previously Republican, who have shifted because of gun regulation and reproductive rights issues, along with people under 25 and people of color. In this bimodal curve, Schultz said, 0-5% are swing voters.
Schultz described how, in the last few years, we have witnessed the least productive Congress in history. Within each political party, six or seven legislators are in the extremes of their party politics. There are very few state legislatures currently in our country that are split like Minnesota,
Within this decade, 10% of voters have decided Presidential elections.
Schultz then gave a very brief summation of his speech. The audience gave a standing ovation for the expert knowledge and insight he presented to us.
