Politicians Are Polarized. American Voters, Not So Much.

Opinion|Politicians Are Polarized. American Voters, Not So Much.

In a moment when partisan tensions feel as though they are reaching a breaking point, is there anyone left who doesn’t live at the ideological extremes? In other words, is there still a political center, and if so, where is it?

For politicians, the center has atrophied. Elected officials in both major political parties are drifting further apart ideologically, and the alignment of ideology and party — conservatives coalescing into the Republican Party, liberals into the Democratic Party — has made the contrasts in our politics feel more stark. As the political scientist Lee Drutman describes it, in the past, “coalitions were flexible, issue dependent and thus multidimensional, with few permanent enemies and many possible allies on all issues.” Today we feel like we are “locked in a zero-sum struggle along a single ‘us-versus-them’ dimension.”

But among voters, there’s a very different story happening: That’s where the center may be alive and well.

For those looking for simple and expansive definitions of the center, there is plenty of data measuring self-described independents and moderates. And there are many of them: Some three in 10 Americans identify as moderate, with an additional 21 percent who say they are only “somewhat conservative” and 15 percent who are only “somewhat liberal.” If we define the center as those without a firm party affiliation, we get more than four in 10 Americans considering themselves independents (though most of those independents lean toward one of the major parties).

But these labels have only so much descriptive power. Do “moderates” or “independents” actually hold middle-of-the-road views on a right-left spectrum? Do they truly sit between the two ideologically sorted parties, or do they break the right-left spectrum entirely, holding a jumble of views across a wide range of issues?

To answer this question, inspired by Mr. Drutman’s work, for years I have asked voters a series of questions about their economic views as well as their social and cultural views. The purpose is to see how voters might sort out, going beyond the conventional right-left spectrum and their own self-reported partisan or ideological labeling.