A majority of Democratic voters who prefer one of the presidential candidates are excited about several candidates vying for the party’s nomination. Far fewer are enthused only by their first choice.
Classifying parties as populist Although experts generally agree that populist political leaders or parties display high levels of anti-elitism, definitions of populism vary. We use three measures to classify populist parties: anti-elite ratings from the 2017 Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES), Inglehart and Norris’s populism party scale and The PopuList. We define a party as […]
Republicans and Democrats agree on very little in the current political environment, but there is a widespread belief in both parties that partisan divisions in the country are increasing. Among the public overall, 78% say divisions between Republicans and Democrats in this country are increasing, while just 6% say they are decreasing and 16% say […]
County-level 2016 vote classification Respondents’ county-level 2016 vote share is used throughout this analysis. Counties were classified according to the proportion of the two-party vote (i.e., excluding third party candidate vote totals from the denominator), using county vote totals found in Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. For instance, Trump by 10+ counties are […]
Seven-in-ten or more Americans say that Democrats, Republicans, liberals and conservatives are at least somewhat comfortable to “freely and openly express their political views” in both their local communities and in the country overall. But there are key partisan differences in these feelings – particularly in views of the national political climate, with Republicans especially […]