Many Americans across the political spectrum misperceive each other as more politically extreme, personally different, and threatening than in reality. This is sometimes called the Perception Gap. In America’s mostly two-party system, Democrats misperceive Republicans, and Republicans misperceive Democrats, often almost symmetrically. Independents misperceive those in each main political party, but sometimes by not as much.
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Examples of how Americans are more similar across politics than we think:
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Policy topics and political viewpoints: Dozens of examples can be found in More in Common’s original Perception Gap study and in our detailed guide to Perception Gap data and resources. Our Similarity Hub built with AllSides provides hundreds of instances of policy and viewpoint overlaps between Democrats and Republicans, or supermajorities (≥70%) of Americans.
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Perceptions of threat: Many Americans vastly overestimate the share of those in the other political party who dehumanize them, or show willingness to break democratic norms or support political violence.
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Attitudes about each other: A substantial number of Americans see each other as more morally and cognitively inferior than in reality. Americans also incorrectly assume that members of the other party are both politically “extreme” and talk about politics “frequently.” Americans actually are most often politically “moderate” and only talk about politics “occasionally.”
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Hobbies and interests: Americans may fail to realize shared interests, such as being a pet owner.
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Demographics: Americans tend to overestimate stereotypical demographic categories in each party.