Analysis There Are Many Things American Voters Agree On Ucl

Leo Migdal

-Dec 3, 2025, 9:51 PM

analysis there are many things american voters agree on ucl

Emma Connolly (UCL Digital Speech Lab) explores the issues, from fears about technology to threats to democracy, that voters on both sides of the political divide agree in The Conversation. During his recent public spat with Donald Trump, Elon Musk� tweeted a poll �asking if a new political party would better represent the 80% of voters in the middle. Hundreds of thousands of people responded and� more than 80% answered "yes" . The middle is still overlooked in US politics. This is because� there is a perception �that Republicans and Democrats have nothing in common, and therefore no issue will win support from both centrist Republicans and Democrats. Polarisation is problematic as it is linked to� "democratic backsliding" - the use of underhand tactics in political processes.

Worst of all,� it poses a threat to democracy. Many think that polarisation is� fuelled by echo chambers �created on social media platforms. These only expose people to beliefs similar to their own. During his recent public spat with Donald Trump, Elon Musk tweeted a poll asking if a new political party would better represent the 80% of voters in the middle. Hundreds of thousands of people responded and more than 80% answered “yes”. The middle is still overlooked in US politics.

This is because there is a perception that Republicans and Democrats have nothing in common, and therefore no issue will win support from both centrist Republicans and Democrats. Polarisation is problematic as it is linked to “democratic backsliding” – the use of underhand tactics in political processes. Worst of all, it poses a threat to democracy. Many think that polarisation is fuelled by echo chambers created on social media platforms. These only expose people to beliefs similar to their own. However, I study how narratives emerge on social media, and ways to investigate them.

My work has two aims: first, to identify political issues that are likely to cross party lines, and a wider goal of exploring the role of social media in mitigating, rather than exacerbating, levels... Subscribe and stretch your donation over time: Or give a secure one-time gift with PayPal or your credit card: Read more about NewsMatch & the Sentinel's Challege Fund » As the presidential election campaign heats up, media coverage suggests Americans are hopelessly divided and headed for a difficult fall – perhaps also a tense January. But that isn’t the whole story, according to reporting and poll results from the American Communities Project, a journalism and research effort we lead that is based at Michigan State University that analyzes the...

During his recent public spat with Donald Trump, Elon Musk tweeted a poll asking if a new political party would better represent the 80% of voters in the middle. Hundreds of thousands of people responded and more than 80% answered “yes”. The middle is still overlooked in US politics. This is because there is a perception that Republicans and Democrats have nothing in common, and therefore no issue will win support from both centrist Republicans and Democrats. Polarisation is problematic as it is linked to “democratic backsliding” – the use of underhand tactics in political processes. Worst of all, it poses a threat to democracy.

Many think that polarisation is fuelled by echo chambers created on social media platforms. These only expose people to beliefs similar to their own. However, I study how narratives emerge on social media, and ways to investigate them. My work has two aims: first, to identify political issues that are likely to cross party lines, and a wider goal of exploring the role of social media in mitigating, rather than exacerbating, levels... WASHINGTON, D.C. — Eight in 10 U.S.

adults agree on a variety of issues that reflect core aspects of U.S. democracy. These include that using violence to achieve political goals is never OK; that elected leaders should compromise to get things done; and that having a mix of races, religions and cultures benefits the nation. Americans also express a desire to limit the political influence of wealthy individuals and businesses and believe there is a difference between facts and opinions. These findings are the first from the Kettering Foundation/Gallup Democracy for All Project and are based on a multimodal (web and mail) survey of over 20,000 U.S. adults, conducted July 7 to Aug.

25. This is a five-year project designed to measure Americans’ views of how well democracy serves the U.S. and Americans from a variety of different backgrounds. The full report details how Americans largely agree that democracy is the best form of government but do not believe it is functioning well right now. As part of the survey, Americans were shown five pairs of contrasting perspectives on how democracy and U.S. society should function and were asked to choose which perspective comes closer to their view.

Large majorities of all key subgroups of Americans reject violence, favor compromise and embrace a multicultural society. There are modest differences in some of these views by party, age and education. For example, Democrats, independents and college graduates are somewhat more likely than Republicans and non-college graduates to see multiculturalism as a strength. Older Americans and Democrats are more likely than younger Americans and Republicans to endorse compromise. Age differences are even more pronounced when it comes to rejecting the use of political violence, with senior citizens most opposed and young adults the least. This relationship will be explored in more depth in an article to be released next week.

Another question in the survey, asked on a five-point agree/disagree scale, finds that eight in 10 Americans strongly agree (39%) or agree (41%) that everyone, regardless of their views, has the right to free,... Just 5% disagree, and 15% are neutral. The New York Times recently conducted an analysis that found an enormous number of elections in the United States are uncontested. This means that voters are left with no choices: the election is a foregone conclusion. Renowned democracy scholars Philippe Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, nearly 35 years ago, wrote, “All democracies involve a degree of uncertainty about who will be elected and what policies they will pursue.” In a... Without a degree of competition, American democracy teeters.

Importantly, a lack of political parties and competition is not news to the American public. Voters agree that the United States is in desperate need of electoral reform. Specifically, Americans want more electoral choices. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center report, 60% of Americans viewed the Republican party unfavorably, and a different 60% of those surveyed viewed the Democratic party unfavorably. Further, nearly one-third of Americans had a favorable view of neither party. At the same time, a second report from the Pew Research Center found that in 2023, nearly 70% of Americans under the age of 50 expressed a desire for more political parties.

People intrinsically know that more choices are better. Of course, science confirms this knowledge. In a democracy, the public is supposed to have control over its leaders. This means there should be policy congruence between democratically elected governments and the voters. That is, government should create policies that the public desires. Decades of political science literature show that systems that produce more political parties also increase the policy congruence between governments and the public.

This is because when a system has more parties, more ideologies are available to choose from in elections. Having more ideologies available to choose from results in a larger range of ideologies entering government—and more of the public’s preferences represented in government. Director, American Communities Project, Michigan State University Manager, American Communities Project, Michigan State University Dante Chinni receives funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for his work on the American Communities Project and is a contributor to the Wall Street Journal. Ari Pinkus receives funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for the American Communities Project.

Michigan State University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US.

Analysis There Are Many Things American Voters Agree On Ucl

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