Today, politics feels both stuck and explosive, as both parties are becoming increasingly unrecognizable to the majority of voters. According to Lynn Vavreck, a political scientist at UCLA and leading researcher into the electorate, it has to do in no small part with this: Most voters identify as moderate, whether a moderate Republican or a moderate Democrat. She describes the state of our politics as "calcified", and her extensive research and analysis for her book The Bitter End serves as a guide into what the 2024 election has in store.