Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Monday, January 24th. I'm Nile Bludu.

Here's what we're watching today. The US orders diplomats families out of Ukraine. Plus,

3D printing for cars. But first, today's one big thing, the rise of hyperpartisan politicians.

If you think partisan politics is already a problem in this country,

well, this year's midterms can see an even bigger slate of extreme candidates.

In at least 19 house districts and 12 states across the US,

hyperpartisan districts won't have incumbents, setting the stage for heavily partisan candidates.

Axios political reporter Steph Kite has been mapping this out. Hey, Steph.

Hey, Nile. First, what do we mean when we say extreme candidates?

You know, we're talking generally about candidates who fall on, you know, the furthest

sides of either political party. Not that, you know, the most progressive Democrats are equal or

the same as the farthest right Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Beaubart,

who have been pretty outspoken in the news lately. But what we are looking at is

both extreme sides. We're looking at both very progressive candidates who would kind of fall

outside of what more moderate traditional Democrats have typically been for. And we're also

looking at extreme right, kind of the Trumpsters who have questioned election results and have

been on that extreme side of things coming from the right. And so why are we seeing this

veer to the edges of both parties rather than candidates who were in the middle?

You know, there's a lot of different reasons for why we're seeing this extreme partisanship.

And you can look at a lot of different things that have happened over the past two years.

You look at the way we consume media in this country, the way that there are these media silos.

You can look at this demographic change called the big sort where people are increasingly living

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