… During the 2020 election campaign, the American National Election Study, widely considered the gold standard of election surveys, asked 8,268 randomly selected American citizens about their ideological location on the liberal-conservative spectrum, a question they have posed since 1972. The seven response options ranged from extremely liberal to extremely conservative with shades of each and a moderate option in between. The result: As Figure 1 shows, more than any other category, Americans in 2020 turned out to be moderate (or had no clue about the liberal-conservative spectrum). Barely a handful align with the endpoints, extreme liberal or extreme conservative. To be true to the meaning of the concept, polarization requires a bipolar distribution, as seen in the US Congress. That is certainly not currently the case for the American electorate. CONTINUED
Helmut Norpoth (Stony Brook) & Michael S. Lewis-Beck (U. of Iowa), LSE USAPP
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