The Minimal Class Divide in American Politics

How deep is the class divide in American politics today? According to some scholars and pundits, it is very deep indeed. In a recent post on the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Larry Bartels of Vanderbilt University, the author of Unequal Democracy and a highly regarded public opinion scholar, presented evidence from a multi-nation public opinion survey that showed the relationship between income and support for cuts in government spending was considerably stronger in the U.S. than in other industrial democracies. …

The evidence from the 2012 ANES indicates that the class divide in the American electorate was not nearly as deep as Bartels’ findings suggested. Upper and lower-income Americans did not differ very much in either their presidential voting decisions or their opinions on a variety of major policy issues including government spending. Other characteristics such as race, partisanship and religion had much stronger effects on Americans’ political attitudes and behavior in 2012. CONT.

Alan Abramowitz (Emory), Sabato’s Crystal Ball

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