How politically polarized will U.S. citizens be in 2024?

Started Aug 26, 2021 08:20PM UTC
Closed Jan 01, 2022 04:59AM UTC

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Data and resolution details. This question resolves based on the American National Election Studies (ANES) survey. Affective political polarization is the difference between how Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. feel about their own party and the other party. Survey recipients are asked how they feel about their own political party on a 0-100 scale, and how they feel about the other political party on a 0-100 scale. The difference between how they feel about their own political party and how they feel about the other political party is their affective political polarization.

The survey instructions are: "I’ll read the name of a person [or party] and I’d like you to rate that person [or party] using something we call the feeling thermometer. Ratings between 50 degrees and 100 degrees mean that you feel favorable and warm toward the person [or party]. Ratings between 0 degrees and 50 degrees mean that you don’t feel favorable toward the person [or party] and that you don’t care too much for that person [or party]. You would rate the person [or party] at the 50 degree mark if you don’t feel particularly warm or cold toward the person [or party]." You can read the survey text here (release variables V201156 and V201157).

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The historical data underlying the graph is here.

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What are forecasters saying? Here is a periodically updated synopsis of forecaster rationales.

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Final Crowd Forecast
Time Period 90% chance to be above Crowd Forecast 90% chance to be below
2024 43.98 54.83 68.16
2022 45.79 53.78 64.63
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