The Parties on the Eve of the 2016 Election: Two Coalitions, Moving Further Apart. Trends in voter party identification 1992-2016 Ahead of the presidential election, the demographic profiles of the Republican and Democratic parties are strikingly different. On key characteristics – especially race and ethnicity and religious affiliation – the two parties look less alike today than at any point over the last quarter-century.
The fundamental demographic changes taking place in the country – an aging population, growing racial and ethnic diversity and rising levels of education – have reshaped both party coalitions. But these changes, coupled with patterns of partisan affiliation among demographic groups, have influenced the composition of the two parties in different ways. Yet an analysis of more than 8,000 interviews conducted by Pew Research Center in 2016 finds that, despite these long-term changes, the overall balance of party identification has changed little in recent years. Trends in party identification. While the country shifts to the right, California keeps moving left.
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Manuel Guerrero is terrified by the impending presidency of Donald Trump and how it will affect Latinos like him. But huddled over the trunk of a Toyota Camry as he put the final touches on a posterboard sign, he vowed that he and his fellow Californians would fight. “California is not gonna take this,” he said as he held the sign, which read “F--- Trump.” Then Guerrero, a 30-year-old artist, walked toward the sidewalk in front of a gas station parking lot, where he and a few dozen others protested, chanted, and waved Mexican flags amid a haze of exhaust and marijuana smoke.
They crossed a six-lane highway as passersby honked their horns and pumped their fists out open windows. California has long been in the vanguard of American politics, routinely enacting liberal legislation and policies long before the rest of the nation and a hotbed of support for Democrats such as Hillary Clinton. [Trump meets with Obama at the White House as whirlwind transition starts] politics. Republican and Democratic platforms show parties further apart than ever | US news. As the Republican convention in Cleveland begins, the GOP and Democratic platforms for the 2016 presidential election are complete.
They sit on either side of a vast ideological gulf. Perusal of the two sets of policies reveals that on issues that are staples of the campaign trail – such as immigration and gay marriage – the two parties are now further apart than ever before. Immigration The Democratic platform urges the passage of a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants who live in the US. In a direct rebuke of the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, the platform also states it “will not stand for the divisive and derogatory language”. In contrast, the Republican platform explicitly states: “We support building a wall along our southern border and protecting all ports of entry. LGBT rights Republicans repeatedly rejected efforts to even mention LGBT Americans by name in their platform.
Environment Washington DC. Campaign finance laws may be making political polarization worse by encouraging ‘purist’ donors. | USAPP. Many Americans have become increasingly concerned over the role of money in politics, and back more populist approaches to reducing political donations. Raymond J. La Raja and Brian F. Schaffner, authors of Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail, argue that populist approaches such as imposing low contribution limits on parties, distort the campaign finance system in ways that benefit a small group of partisan purists at the expense of the broader electorate. This in turn pushes candidates towards ideological extremes. They write that reformers should consider a more party-centered campaign finance system which would channel money to candidates through highly transparent and broadly accountable party organizations, which would then lead to less polarization.
Since the 2010 Citizens United decision, there has been increasing concern over the role of money in politics. Ideological Donors and their Impact on Legislatures Build Canals, Not Dams About the author. Justice Scalia's legacy: blistering zingers and a more partisan America | Scott Lemieux | Opinion. When Antonin Scalia was nominated to the US supreme court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, the first Italian-American to serve on the Court was unanimously confirmed by the Senate.
It may well be a year – or several – before the Senate confirm anybody to replace Scalia, who died on Saturday at the age of 79. But that vote will almost assuredly not be unanimous, regardless of who the eventual nominee is: the politics of US supreme court appointments have become as polarized as the rest of American politics. And Scalia himself played a significant role in that very polarization. Scalia’s legacy will be extensively celebrated by conservatives – Marco Rubio spoke for orthodox Republican opinion when he called Scalia one of the greatest justices in US supreme court history at Saturday’s Republican debate – and derided by liberals, many of whom wasted little time celebrating his demise and speculating how his absence on the court could affect future cases.
No, Americans have not become more ideologically polarized. (Shutterstock.com) The polarization of Democrats and Republicans in Congress is so well-known that it seems natural to conclude that the American public is polarizing, too. A recent Pew Research Center report generated headlines such as “Polarization is dividing American society, not just politics.” Ezra Klein called polarization “The single most important fact about American politics.”
A prominent political scientist wrote a book titled “The Polarized Public.” And in the pages of this very blog, another prominent political scientist declared, “Americans are so polarized, they’re even polarized about polarization.” This narrative is badly skewed. Our research takes advantage of everything we know about people’s issue positions from the longest running and most respected survey in political science, the American National Election Studies. We applied the same widely accepted method that is used to measure polarization in Congress to average Americans. This result may be surprising. How House Republicans lurched to the right and left John Boehner behind. Kissing it all goodbye. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) John Boehner was elected House majority leader in 2006 after 15 years in Congress.
And if you had told someone, at that time, that Boehner would resign his seat in less than 10 years for being insufficiently conservative, you probably would have been laughed at. But Boehner's career provides an illustration of the stunning rightward shift among House Republicans in recent years. [Live coverage of Boehner's announcement] When John Boehner first went to Washington in 1991, the average ideology score of House Republicans hovered somewhere between 0.3 and 0.4.
Boehner was obviously part of that shift -- after all, we're talking about the man who was the face of GOP opposition to Obamacare, shouting "Hell no you can't! " For many in the younger generation of Republicans elected to the House in the tea party wave of 2010 and since then, this pragmatism was tantamount to surrender.
Can unlimited contributions to political parties really reduce polarization? The U.S. Capitol Reflecting Pool. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) A core problem in American politics is ideological polarization, which makes compromise impossible, not only in Congress but also in the states. Polarization has many causes, most of which can’t be altered. The logic of this argument goes something like this: Since political parties above all else want to win elections, they should support moderate candidates, who are more likely to win in general elections (as compared to extreme candidates). But it’s not just a theoretical question. So far, we have one influential test of this proposition.
This is too quick a conclusion to draw on the basis of a single analysis. LaRaja and Schaffner combine all the legislators into a single distribution, thereby overweighting states with more elected officials and ignoring the differences across states in the same limits category (are Alaska Democrats and California Democrats really equivalent?). So what’s going on here? Unlimited party fundraising and spending gives you less polarized legislature... By Ray LaRaja and Brian Schaffner July 8 at 2:19 PM Lee Drutman’s recent Monkey Cage piece challenges a finding from our forthcoming book, Campaign Finance and Political Polarization:When Purists Prevail. That is, that states that allow parties to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money tend to have less polarized legislatures.
This finding has important implications for how we regulate money in politics. Thus, it is not surprising that the finding is attracting challenges from reform circles. In this post, we will briefly identify problems with Drutman’s analysis. In his Monkey Cage post, Drutman writes, “Looked at another way, the same data suggest the very opposite result: that states that limit contributions to parties are actually less polarized than states without limits.” The first key inconsistency with Drutman’s challenge is that he compares states based on whether parties can raise unlimited amounts from contributors. Here’s the issue: states change their laws.
The Political Typology: Beyond Red vs. Blue. Even in an increasingly Red vs. Blue nation, the public’s political attitudes and values come in many shades and hues. Partisan polarization – the vast and growing gap between Republicans and Democrats – is a defining feature of politics today. But beyond the ideological wings, which make up a minority of the public, the political landscape includes a center that is large and diverse, unified by frustration with politics and little else.
As a result, both parties face formidable challenges in reaching beyond their bases to appeal to the middle of the electorate and build sustainable coalitions. The latest Pew Research Center political typology, which sorts voters into cohesive groups based on their attitudes and values, provides a field guide for this constantly changing landscape. Before reading further, take our quiz to see where you fit in the typology.
The Next Generation Left are young, relatively affluent and very liberal on social issues like same-sex marriage and abortion. Political Polarization in the American Public | Pew Research Center. How Increasing Ideological Uniformity and Partisan Antipathy Affect Politics, Compromise and Everyday Life Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines – and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive – than at any point in the last two decades. These trends manifest themselves in myriad ways, both in politics and in everyday life. And a new survey of 10,000 adults nationwide finds that these divisions are greatest among those who are the most engaged and active in the political process.
Explore interactive version of this data The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%. And ideological thinking is now much more closely aligned with partisanship than in the past. Today 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican More on Growing Partisan Antipathy What Polarization Looks Like.