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.