Wall Street Journal
The ideological split is mirrored in race, sex, age, education, location and religion.
Millions of Americans yearn for a more civil and cooperative form of politics, but the Republican and Democratic parties are pulling us in the opposite direction. By every measure, the parties have drifted ideologically further apart than they were two decades ago, and there is no reason to think the trend will be reversed anytime soon.
A March report from the Pew Research Center illustrates the magnitude of the partisan sorting that has taken place. In 2017, 68% of Republican voters described themselves as “conservative,” compared with 58% in 2000. Over the same period, the share of Democratic voters calling themselves “liberal” has grown from 28% to 46%. Self-described moderates, meanwhile, dropped from 44% of Democrats to 37%.
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Demographic gaps between the parties have widened in tandem. In 1997 whites made up 83% of the electorate—92% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats. Over the subsequent 20 years, the Democratic Party diversified more rapidly than the GOP. Now the white share of the electorate stands at 69%—83% of Republicans and only 59% of Democrats. Racially and ethnically, in other words, the Republican base looks more like the country did two decades ago, while Democrats foreshadow what the country will be two decades from now. Neither party represents the U.S. as it is today.
Demography and geography are linked. In the suburbs, the parties have remained roughly balanced since the turn of the century. By contrast, Democrats’ advantage in urban counties has shot up from 18 to 31 points, while Republicans have gone from a tie with Democrats in rural areas to a 16-point lead today.
Differences between the sexes have sharpened as well. Men have leaned Republican since at least 1994, though the margin has narrowed to 4 points. By contrast, Democrats’ advantage among women has soared from 6 to 19 points. Across racial and ethnic groups, women are more likely than men to identify with the Democratic Party—by 9 points among whites and 8 among blacks and Hispanics.
Age matters, too. In 1994 Americans born before the end of World War II were about evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Today, Republicans enjoy a significant edge in this cohort. Among baby boomers and Generation X, meanwhile, Democrats have erased the modest leads Republicans once enjoyed.
Millennial voters, those born between 1981 and 1996, started off pro-Democratic and became steadily more so as the entire cohort reached voting age. In 2004, 53% leaned Democratic, compared with 38% Republican. That 15-point gap has widened to 27 points. This shift has been driven by young women. The party leanings of millennial men have not changed significantly, but the Democrats’ advantage among millennial women has jumped from 18 points in 2004 to 47 today. These numbers are consistent with reports in recent years of high levels of progressive activism among young women.
At the same time, educated voters have grown more culturally liberal, while less-educated voters have moved to the right. After trailing Democrats for decades among voters with no more than a high school diploma—the so-called working class—Republicans now lead. Among white voters in this group, Republicans have accumulated a 23-point edge, after being roughly tied between 1994 and 2008.
By contrast, party identification among voters with a bachelor’s degree has been turned on its head. In 1994 Republicans led Democrats in this group by 54% to 39%. Now, Democrats lead Republicans by an identical 54% to 39%. Similarly, while the parties were roughly tied in 1994 among voters with postgraduate education, today Democrats trounce Republicans 63% to 31%. As the share of Americans with college degrees increases, this trend could place Republicans at a mounting disadvantage. In the meantime, the clash between educated and less-educated groups may continue to fuel the rise of populism.
Religion, too, may sharpen the divide. In 1994, white evangelical Protestants gave a 30-point edge to Republicans, which has now grown to 59 points. Religiously unaffiliated voters, who have tripled to nearly a quarter of the electorate since 1997, constitute a third of all Democrats, compared with 13% of Republicans.
Our politics would be more likely to produce constructive solutions if the variegated groups that form American society were in constant dialogue under the same partisan tents. But that doesn’t seem likely to happen. When parties are this divided along lines of race, sex, religion and class, compromise between their moderate wings is the only viable path to progress.