America Disrupted

FILE - In this Tuesday, March 10, 2020 file photo, Ricky Hurtado, the first Latino candidate to run for North Carolina's House of Representatives, poses for a portrait by a mural in Graham, N.C. It's been a tumultuous few months for Hurtado. In November, the 32-year-old son of Salvadoran immigrant won a seat in the North Carolina state legislature as a Democrat representing a suburban slice of Alamance County. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

A divided nation asks: What’s holding our country together?

Elections are meant to resolve arguments. This one inflamed them.

Weeks after the votes have been counted and the winners declared, many Americans remain angry, defiant and despairing.
 
Graphic shows demographic and voter data for Butler County, Pennsylvania.

‘We need you': GOP hunts for new voters in Trump territory

 
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer campaigns with Dan O'Neil, a Democratic candidate for the Michigan House in Traverse City, Mich., Friday, Oct. 9, 2020. Whitmer visited the area the day after police announced a foiled plot to kidnap the governor. (AP Photo/John Flesher)

‘Our house is on fire': Suburban women lead charge vs. Trump

 
Carts line up before a parade of over 300 golf carts supporting Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden caravanned to the Sumter County Elections office drop off their ballots Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020, in The Villages, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

A senior warning sign for Trump: ‘Go Biden’ cry at Villages

 
A mural is displayed at a fast-food Mexican restaurant near the Deer Valley suburb in Phoenix, Ariz., on March 9, 2020. Suburbs across the country have grown more diverse, crowded and politically competitive. These trends are eating away at decades of Republican control as more than half of the electorate calls the suburbs home. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-MIlls)

AP PHOTOS: Scenes from Arizona’s growing, pivotal suburbs

 

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Marshall Militano and his wife, Sarah, pray at the Mission Bell United Methodist Church in Phoenix, Ariz., on March 15, 2020. Militano has switched his voter registration from independent to Democrat. He and his wife cried after he told her. "I want our country to get back to calm," he said. "I'm not talking about kumbaya - I'm talking about rational. We haven't done anything in this country in four years except hate." (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

Moving the flip zone: Democrats march deeper into suburbia

PHOENIX (AP) — When Katherine Rutigliano and her husband moved away from San Francisco in 2013, they figured they would never meet a fellow Democrat again.
 
Supporters of President Donald Trump listen as he speaks during a campaign rally at Cecil Airport, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

They wanted disruption in 2016. Now they’re Trump defectors

Shawna Jensen’s moment of reckoning came in March, as she sat in her suburban Fort Worth, Texas, living room next to her fireplace.
 
Houdini Plaza, named after Appleton's most famous son, world famous illusionist Harry Houdini, sits in the center of downtown Appleton, Wis., Aug. 20, 2020. The lines inscribed on the monument from the celebrated escape artist are, "What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes." Here, feelings about the economy do not come from job numbers, union contracts or bonuses. They come from an emotion, a psychological phenomenon that separates the believers and doubters of the president. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Politics creates economic illusion in Houdini’s hometown

APPLETON, Wis. (AP) — Nothing can shake Scott Rice’s faith that President Donald Trump will save the U.S. economy — not seeing businesses close or friends furloughed, not even his own hellish bout with the novel coronavirus.
 
Esperanza Carrillo, of Burlington, N.C., washes cars at Vivas Hand Car Wash, Wednesday, March 11, 2020, along a strip of Latino owned businesses. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

He set out to mobilize Latino voters. Then the virus hit.

GRAHAM, N.C (AP) — Like many Americans, Ricky Hurtado had different plans for his summer.

He formally announced his first bid for public office in March and expected to spend sweltering days knocking on doors, clenching glossy campaign literature and making his case directly to voters.
 
FILE - In this Thursday, June 6, 2019 file photo, Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., speaks during the "I Will Vote" Fundraising Gala in Atlanta. Among voters in the 2018 midterm elections, AP VoteCast shows that Black women were more likely than women in any other racial or ethnic group to support Democratic House candidates, and their support for Democrats was also somewhat higher than among Black men. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

AP VoteCast: How Black women shape Democratic politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — Black women are often called the backbone of the Democratic Party — reliable and loyal voters whose support can make or break a candidate.
 
Audrey Allen, 54, walks on the sidewalk near a neighborhood where she hands out early voting registration forms on Wednesday, July 8, 2020, in Powder Springs, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

‘If not now, when?': Black women seize political spotlight

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — The little girl ran up to her, wide-eyed and giddy.

Davis was stunned.
 
Pastor Hurley J. Coleman Jr., poses for a portrait Monday, June 29, 2020, inside the sanctuary of the World Outreach Campus Church in Saginaw, Mich. He says recent protests were the first time he's seen Blacks and whites march together in Saginaw favor of racial equality. “This is one of those terrible growth moments where people of goodwill and good thought can bring us to another level. ... When you build on truth, anything is possible.” (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

AMERICA DISRUPTED: Troubles cleave a nation, and a city

SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) — It was difficult to celebrate America in Saginaw this year. The deadly coronavirus had torn through the county. Unemployment had surged five-fold.