American Politics Today connects course topics to the issues students care about to help them see the relevance of studying American government. The Ninth Edition welcomes two new coauthors, Candis Watts Smith (Duke University) and Amber Boydstun (University of California, Davis), who use issues including gun rights, AI regulation, and the student debt crisis to springboard discussions about American government and politics. Comprehensive updates incorporate coverage of the second Trump administration and the trends that motivated candidates and voters during the midterm elections. New and updated courseware and pedagogy help students understand how politics actually works, both in theory and in practice, and ensure they’re engaging deeply with course concepts. 

• New coauthors Candis Watts Smith and Amber Boydstun bring a fresh vision to American Politics Today, using their research and scholarly expertise to enhance the behavioral topics in the text and provide a new chapter learning experience.  
• New chapter openers use a key issue that students care about—selected based on data from the Pew Research Center, Gallup, the Cooperative Election Study, and other reputable sources—to explore the relevancy of the chapter topic, outlining the range of opinions about the issue being discussed.  
• New author videos in the Norton Illumine Ebook engage students to think critically about the chapter concepts and learning objectives.  
• A new polling tool in the ebook encourages students to reflect on where they stand on the chapter issue and illustrates how their opinions fit into the broader landscape of data on the concept. 
• New conclusions, titled “Get Informed. Be Engaged,” connect the dots between the issue in the chapter opener and the chapter learning objectives to help students recognize the ways in which the topic of the chapter relates directly to their own lives. A collection of curated resources offers options to continue exploring the issue from a variety of viewpoints.  
• New and updated How It Works: In Theory/In Practice infographics, available as new critical thinking interactives in the ebook, break down essential processes and procedures both in terms of how they should work according to the Constitution and established norms, and how they work in reality.