Which Party Has Moved Further From Middle Ground: Democrats or Republicans?

What's the story?

• A Pew Research Center analysis found that Democrats and Republicans are ideologically further away from each other today than at any point in the last 50 years. This finding does not come as a shock to most people observing U.S. politics — partisan hostility has noticeably increased as political polarization grows. 
• Many U.S. voters are left wondering how the two parties became so polarized, who’s farther away from the middle ground, and which party they identify with. 

Which party had a more dramatic lean? 

• A 2022 analysis by Pew Research Center found that between Democrats and Republicans, the latter has moved farther away from where they were 50 years ago. The Democrats in Congress have become 6.5% more liberal, while the Republicans have become 26.5% more conservative. 

• Many say there is no longer room for moderates anymore in the political field, as there are only two dozen moderate Democrats and Republicans left on Capitol Hill today, compared to over 160 in the early 1970s. 

Why is this the case?

• Analysts note that the congressional polarization we see today isn’t out of the blue, but long in the making.
• The researchers stated that both parties have grown more “ideologically cohesive,” which a 1997 research paper described as:

“...the extent to which [Congress] members are or are not united in their opinions about important political and policy questions.” 

• Since Congress members are far more likely to agree with other party members, there is more conflict across the aisle. Pew Research states: 

“...the gaps between the least conservative Republicans and the least liberal Democrats in both the House and the Senate have widened – making it ever less likely that there’s any common ground to find.”

• Additionally, the Pew researchers note the difference between the geographic and demographic makeup of both parties — nearly half of House Democrats are people of color, while the vast majority of House Republicans are white, with half coming from Southern states. 

What are experts saying?

• Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at John Hopkins, says this trend is a result of "the great sorting" that occurred in the wake of the civil rights movement, the women's movement, Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy, and Roe v. Wade. She adds that people today no longer carry beliefs from both party ideologies but have a "mega-identity" aligning with just one side of the aisle. When people's mega-identity is challenged, they reduce the issue to "us" versus "them," hence the intense polarization we see today. 
• Experts also point to the internet, which Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law professor, calls "a breeding ground for extremism." Like-minded people are easily connecting and creating an echo chamber, leading to intense "group polarization," as many social scientists call it. 
• In one recent example, 31 members of a white supremacist group were arrested this summer for planning to riot at an LGBTQ+ parade in Idaho. Like many, the group fostered hateful rhetoric online in what Jon Lewis, George Washington University researcher, dubbed a "massive right-wing media ecosystem."

Do you believe you've leaned further away from the middle in recent years?

-Jamie Epstein