by Rebecca Bankhead and Jeremy C. Pope
Heading into the 2024 election, lots of people want to believe that America is always and quite irrevocably polarized. It’s a reasonable place to start: Congress provides a never-ending stream of evidence and issues that divide Democrats and Republicans are highlighted in headlines nationwide, creating images of division and contention and making compromise seem unattainable. Issues with major differences between Democrats and Republicans do exist, but beneath these divisions lie an unexpected number of points where Democrats and Republicans have common interests, opening doors for compromise and cooperation.
The 2020 Cooperative Election Study (CES) measured public opinion on a series of policy proposals across a host of areas–some divided and some not. It is common to see massive differences between Democrats and Republicans–ones that will probably persist in this election. Indeed, at first glance, the figure above, roughly ordered from most liberal to most conservative issues, displays just that pattern for immigration law enforcement, and abortion–all areas of controversy.
But a closer look reveals where the parties could agree if they so chose. Democrats (blue and Republicans (red), are quite often both above or below the dashed fifty percent line meaning they are on the same side of an issue. Thus a closer look at each of these areas shows that bipartisan action is not only possible but that it also has the potential to be effective in addressing common concerns and bridging seemingly impossible partisan divides–at least on some things.
Beginning with immigration Democrats tend to oppose and Republicans support reducing immigration and enforcing stricter borders. However, the clear point where both parties reach majority level of support was for providing permanent resident status to children of immigrants–clear common ground that would satisfy the majority of both parties.
Even in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, issues regarding law enforcement have a surprising amount of agreement between Democrats and Republicans. Both parties agree that chokeholds should be banned, that body cameras should be required on duty, that individuals should be allowed to sue officers found to have “recklessly disregarded” individual rights, and that there should be a registry of police who have been investigated for misconduct. Ultimately, both parties want police officers, but they want them to be accountable to the public–opportunities for agreement that could satisfy both parties are plentiful.
Abortion seems like the topic destined to find the least agreement. On this issue, Democrats and Republicans seem to rarely agree on anything. But is that really true? Even in this area compromise is not quite so hard to find.
From the chart above we see a massive majority of Democrats support always allowing abortion as a matter of choice, and a rather large majority of Republicans wanting to prohibit all abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. The chart below shows pure Independents (those who do not lean towards either party) and their views on the abortion issues presented above and reveals some of the trouble in finding agreement. Consider the percent of Independents who support these two commonly Democratic and Republican views. Both of these variables have over fifty percent support, suggesting there are individuals who support both always allowing abortion as a matter of choice and prohibiting abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy.
One possible explanation for this agreement is interpreting the response option of “always allowing a woman to obtain an abortion as a matter of choice” as always giving women a chance to obtain an abortion. With this understanding, both this response option and prohibiting all abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy can be supported simultaneously without any obvious logical inconsistency. With this in mind, a compromise between Democrats and Republicans can exist if there are no restrictions on who can get an abortion, but only up until about the 20th week of pregnancy, after which some restrictions kick in for at least some people. Even in this most difficult area it is not impossible to find common ground even when it is not obvious.
Ultimately, while differences between Democrats and Republicans exist, they do not eliminate the possibility of bipartisan cooperation if both parties are willing to compromise. While neither party may get their ideal preference, the data above shows that even among the most controversial issues there are plenty of points on which Democrats and Republicans can come to conclusions where the majority of both parties are satisfied. Earlier this year we saw an example of this with a $118 billion package proposed in the Senate in which Republicans’ demand for stricter border security and immigration laws was granted in exchange for aid towards Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine, as supported by Democrats. This bill gained bipartisan support in the Senate and would have led to significant reform favoring certain priorities within both parties. This bill was ultimately defeated, in large measure due to former President Trump’s pressure on Republican Senators to not support the bill. Their fear of turning against him and harming their re-election campaigns seemed to be a large factor and demonstrates that partisanship can often kill productive action.
But this data from the CES demonstrates that rather than living in an endless stalemate where neither party is happy with nothing getting done, small compromises on both ends can result in progress that is acceptable among both parties. While requiring a shift in perspective to see success as achieving progress rather than simply blocking initiatives, the data above shows that agreement may be elusive, but it is out there.
Rebecca Bankhead is a junior studying Political Science at Brigham Young University. Jeremy C. Pope is a Professor of Political Science at BYU.