US voters are less partisan than they think

In an election year, there's no escaping the intense polarisation that has soured US political debate in recent years. Look beyond the politicians and the media circus surrounding them, though, and it's a different story. People's views on a series of touchstone issues do not follow party affiliation as strongly as is popularly assumed. What's more, little has changed since the early 1970s, according to a new study.

No one doubts that elected representatives in Washington DC have become more polarised. By analysing voting patterns in the US Congress, Keith Poole of the University of Georgia in Athens and Howard Rosenthal of New York University have shown that lawmakers have divided ever more strongly along party lines since the 1940s.

Political scientists are split, though, on whether this growing chasm reflects a hardening of partisan attitudes among the electorate. To investigate further, John Chambers of the University of Florida in Gainesville, working with Leaf Van Boven of the University of Colorado at Boulder and his student Jake Westfall, analysed results from the American National Election Studies, in which voters have been surveyed in each presidential election year.

The researchers looked at people's views on 10 divisive topics, including government provision of health insurance and spending on defence. They also looked at the same people's estimates of typical Democrats' and Republicans' views on the same issues. The actual degree of polarisation according to party affiliation was fairly modest, but people thought it was much wider ? especially those who described themselves as "strong" Republicans or Democrats. These patterns have been consistent since 1970.

"Polarisation is not as great as we think it is," says Chambers. "And it hasn't changed."

False assumptions

Chambers and his colleagues hope that exposing this misperception will help people make more informed decisions about individual candidates, rather than simply voting along party lines to keep the "enemy" at bay.

"People are acting on false assumptions," says Van Boven. "When people feel threatened, they become very defensive."

The researchers also related people's perceptions of polarisation to whether they said they voted or got involved in political campaigns. Even after controlling for strength of party affiliation and other factors, people who perceived the US public to be more polarised were more likely to be politically active.

This suggests that close electoral races are often decided by voters who are driven by false fears about others' views ? and may mean that the party which most effectively stokes these fears among its supporters is likely to carry the day.

The study conclusions will be presented at this week's Society for Personality and Social Psychology's meeting in San Diego, California.

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