Mellman: Two Americas?

It’s often said that Democrats and Republicans inhabit different countries.

At least, they seem to see the same country quite differently. They certainly feel differently about it.

{mosads}Last month, a Pew poll found 66 percent of Republicans saying “life for people like you in America” is worse than “compared with 50 years ago.” Among Democrats, 48 percent said life is “better”; only 28 percent of Democrats thought it was worse.

Fifty-six percent of Republicans surveyed by Pew believe immigrants “are a burden on our country because they take our jobs, housing and health care,” a position endorsed by just 17 percent of Democrats, more than three-quarters of whom said immigrants “strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents.” 

Seventy-one percent of Democrats maintain that the increasing number of people of different races and ethnicities make the U.S. a better place to live, compared to 46 percent of Republicans.

Fifty-eight percent of Republicans think corporations make a fair and reasonable profit, while 75 percent of Democrats believe they make too much.

Even assessments of “objective” economic reality reveal sharp partisan skews. Gallup recently found 54 percent of Democrats saying it was a good time to look for a good job, for example; only 28 percent of Republicans shared that view.

The differences in Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index were similarly striking: in March it was plus 14 for Democrats, and minus 35 for Republicans.

Vast partisan differences when it comes to facts and feelings are hardly new. Scholars have been aware of the partisan impact on economic assessments since at least the mid-1980s.

At the end of President Reagan’s second term, the American National Election Study asked whether “compared to 1980, the level of unemployment in the country ha[d] gotten better, stayed about the same, or gotten worse?” Even though unemployment had declined, only about 30 percent of strong Democrats recognized the improvement. By contrast, over 60 percent of Republicans correctly reported the decline in unemployment. 

A poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes of the University of Maryland in 2004 found 72 percent of George W. Bush supporters saying Iraq had at least one major weapon of mass destruction program before the war. Only 26 percent of John Kerry supporters had the same perception.

All of this seems to confirm the fact the Democrats and Republicans see the world differently.

But there is another alternative. 

Perhaps respondents are just cheerleading for their party, giving it credit for good and their opponents blame for bad. Perhaps they are agreeing with what they see as their party’s view of the world without really endorsing the view themselves. 

Two Yale professors provide evidence on both sides of the argument.

On the one hand, Alan Gerber and Gregory Huber demonstrate that partisans act in the real world based on their party-induced economic perceptions, suggesting their partisan perspective is far more than simply praising one party and criticizing the other. 

The same professors, along with some colleagues, then conducted an experiment using questions about casualties in Iraq, inflation and unemployment. Half the sample was merely asked the questions. The other half was given a very small financial incentive to give the “correct” answer. 

The incentive for the correct answer reduced the partisan gap by about 50 percent. 

If the possibility of earning a little money reduces the impact of partisanship, it would seem that at least part of the partisan gap is simply cheerleading.

So do partisans really live in different worlds, seeing and feeling very different things, or do they have somewhat similar perceptions of the world but use their cheap and easy survey responses to express positive views of their party and negative assessments of the opposition?

It’s probably some of both, but it’s clear that straightforward interpretations of survey results are not always accurate and poll responses are not as simple as they seem.

Sometimes poll participants are using their responses for their own purposes, not for ours. 

Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the minority leader of the Senate and the Democratic whip in the House.