Americans on both sides list partisan cooperation as a top problem: survey
A voter checks in at Suffield Middle School on primary election day, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022, in Suffield, Conn. Suffield is one of several small towns in Connecticut where control was flipped from Democrats to Republicans in 2021 municipal races. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
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Americans on both sides of the political aisle think partisan cooperation is a problem, new polling shows.
A Pew Research survey released Wednesday found 62 percent of Americans think “the ability of Democrats and Republicans to work together” is a “very big” problem. Another 27 percent say it’s a “moderately big” problem, and 6 percent say it’s a small problem.
Similar percentages of both major sides list the parties’ ability to work together as a very big problem: 62 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, and 63 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.
The results come as Americans are starkly divided on several other issues.
Eighty-one percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents list gun violence as a very big problem, compared to just 38 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents. On immigration, the parties are split by 50 points, with 70 percent on the Republican side saying it’s a very big problem, compared to just 25 percent on the Democratic side who said the same.
The one-point difference in the parties’ answers on partisan cooperation is the second-smallest gap on a list of 16 issues. On unemployment, there was no difference, with 23 percent of both sides saying it’s a very big problem.
The share of Americans overall who say partisan cooperation is a very big problem is behind only the 64 percent who list health care affordability and the 65 percent who list inflation as very big problems.
Conducted June 5 to June 11, the results for 5,115 respondents have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 1.7 percentage points.
