New Common Ground Democracy column, with this subtitle: “The consequences of the nation’s two-party system is vividly on display with the elimination of Kyrsten Sinema and Nikki Haley from their respective races.” Since writing the column last night, I was listening to Chuck Todd’s most recent podcast with Amy Walter, and one point they made that is relevant to the Common Ground Democracy column is that, whereas Arizona’s 2018 U.S. Senate race between Sinema and Martha McSally was contested within the 40 or 45 yard lines, to invoke the football analogy, this year’s race between Sinema and Kari Lake will involve candidates positioned much closer to each of the end zones. As the two of them observed, this kind of electoral competition in a 50-50 purple state, like Arizona, is much different than the Sinema-McSally race even though the state is equally purple in both cases. This point is the critical one, given the partisan polarization of American politics, and is why the analysis of the new Atkinson-Ganz paper that I highlighted in my previous Common Ground Democracy column is so important.