Deep Partisan Divide Hangs Over Midterm Elections

As part of its She’s the Difference women’s voter project, AARP spoke with women voters age 50-plus across the country. Many volunteered their concern over the lack of unity. During one focus group, a Democrat said that a decade ago it was common for her to vote for candidates from both major parties; it all depended upon what they stood for. Now, she said, she wouldn’t even consider voting for someone from the GOP.

While the increase in political polarization has led more Americans to go to their respective corners politically, this lack of unity has also led, ironically, to more people labeling themselves as independent, experts note. 

A lot of people who used to identify as a partisan with one party or another are just turned off now, says Jeff Jones, a senior editor at Gallup. “When we ask them whether they think of themselves as a Democrat or Republican, they say they think about themselves as independent,” even if on policy issues they lean toward one party or the other’s.

Gallup’s polling bears that out. “At least 4 in 10 Americans have considered themselves independents in all years since 2011, except for the 2016 and 2020 presidential election years,” a report on their survey released in January says. “Before 2011, independent identification had never reached 40 percent.”

Is it the media’s fault?

Sharp partisan divisions have often been a part of American politics, notes Republican strategist Bolger. Think back to the Civil War, to the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s or to Watergate, he notes. What’s different now?

Bolger and others suggest that where Americans get their news, what social media channels they frequent and even where they choose to live have exacerbated the current go-to-their-corners atmosphere.

“People feel they can’t trust the news. They don’t know what to believe,” says Margie Omero, a Democratic pollster on the bipartisan team that conducted AARP’s She’s the Difference poll. Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research and public engagement organization, did a survey last year on the partisan divide as part of its Hidden Common Ground initiative. Only 9 percent of the 2,345 adult Americans surveyed believe that political hostility and divisions among ordinary Americans will decline over the next decade; 42 percent believe it will increase. When asked what might help bring the country together, “more accurate and trustworthy news and information” topped the list.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the ways we have sorted ourselves out as a country,” says Andrew Seligsohn, Public Agenda’s president. “More and more, we live in neighborhoods that are not diverse in a variety of ways, especially in terms of income. People tend not to meet and talk to people who are quite different from them.”

Seligsohn also says that, unlike the 1960s and early 1970s protests against policies like the Vietnam War, “what we’re experiencing now is different because some of our core institutions are directly threatened.” Even in the 1960s, he says, the legitimacy of elections, for example, was mostly accepted.

Gina Everly believes divisions in the country have always been there, but now they’ve gotten worse. Everly, 60, is a social worker and a registered Democrat who lives in San Bernardino County, California. She worries that some of the gains that allowed her family to move beyond segregation decades ago and win voting rights could be scaled back. “As minorities, will we start losing voting rights and, as women, start losing the rights to our bodies?” She also has worries about democracy. “I don’t think democracy, in its truest sense, will ever go away,” she says. “But I don’t think it will be all-inclusive, the way we as African Americans fought for.”

The fight for hope

Public Agenda’s Seligsohn admits that his survey does not paint an optimistic picture. But, he notes, the lack of unity in the country doesn’t necessarily mean that people are also angry at their fellow Americans. According to the survey, only 30 percent of Americans have unfavorable feelings toward those who don’t vote as they do.

He sees a role for older Americans to play in attempting to heal the partisan rift. “Young people feel their interests are completely marginalized in American politics right now,” Seligsohn says. And many younger voters have only seen a country that has deep political divisions. He suggests that older Americans help by working with young people to heal those rifts. 

Political experts say they do see pockets in America where people and organizations are trying to bridge the partisan divide.

David Blankenhorn cofounded Braver Angels after the 2016 election. His nonprofit group believes that one way to overcome the current climate is for Americans to sit together with people with different views and have civil conversations.

To those who suggest that talking won’t solve anything, Blankenhorn says, “The very definition of democracy is government by talk. If government by talk is not what you’re doing, then you’re having government by force.”

Braver Angels has 83 chapters across the country and about 50,000 people who have subscribed or attended an event. “This problem has been growing for decades, and it’s not going to be easy to turn around,” Blankenhorn notes. “We do believe we’re making progress but ultimately, this is a question of hope.”