The fight over the government shutdown is the latest battle in an American political system that seems ever more polarized. Certainly the parties in Congress are moving ever further apart. And the newly released 2012 American National Election Study—arguably the canonical political survey of Americans—suggests that Democrats and Republicans in the public continue to move further apart too. …
The new numbers appear to fit a common storyline: Disappointed by President Obama’s unfulfilled promise of bipartisanship, Americans have retreated into their partisan corners and are now more bitterly divided than ever before.
But it’s the wrong story. And the reason involves an ongoing controversy in the polling community: whether online surveys are effective replacements for in-person and telephone surveys. [cont.]
Lori Bougher (Princeton) & Markus Prior (Princeton), Washington Post