Is political polarization worse than it's been in the past?

Short answer: Yes, in many important respects — especially in the U.S. — but it depends on which type of polarization you're measuring.

Political scientists generally distinguish between a few different kinds of polarization, and the trends aren't identical across all of them.

1. Elite/Congressional (ideological) polarization — near record highs

Using measures like DW-NOMINATE scores that track how members of Congress vote, researchers find ideological distance between the parties began to grow during the 1970s to the extent that Congress is now more polarized than at any time since the late 1870s Reconstruction Era. That said, some scholars caution that viewed within the context of data from the last two centuries, today's levels of polarization are not such an alarming anomaly compared to those occurring during the time of slavery and other historically fraught eras. A key feature of the current era is that ideologically moderate Congresspeople—especially Republicans—are increasingly rare, with only about two dozen ideological moderates remaining in Congress, whereas there used to be overlap between the parties that no longer exists today.

2. Mass public ideological consistency — up significantly since the 1990s

Among ordinary voters, Pew's long-running data show 92% of Republicans are now to the right of the median Democrat, compared with 64% twenty years ago, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican, up from 70% in 1994. More broadly, the number of Americans in the ideological "tails" has doubled from 10% to 21% over the past twenty years, while the center has shrunk. Recent Gallup data confirm this is still increasing: in 2024, the shares of Republicans identifying as conservative and Democrats identifying as liberal both reached record highs.

3. Affective polarization (mutual dislike/distrust) — this is where the "worse than ever" case is strongest

This is arguably the most dramatic shift. The share of Republicans who view Democrats as "very unfavorable" has risen from 17% in 1994 to 62% in 2024, and the mirror image for Democrats is nearly identical. Partisan moral contempt has also spiked: in 2022, 72% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats viewed the opposing party as more immoral than other Americans—up dramatically from 47% and 35% in 2016. Overall, a major element in polarization has been the growing contempt that many Republicans and Democrats have for the opposing party, and today these sentiments are broader and deeper than in the recent past.

Even at the presidential-approval level, the partisan split is historically wide — one recent analysis notes an unusually large gap in Trump's approval ratings that is lower than most recent presidents at comparable points, with a partisan gap of 78 percentage points.

4. Geographic and "sorting" polarization — also rising

The share of Americans living in landslide counties grew from 39% in 1992 to 57% in 2024, limiting cross-partisan exposure, and this geographic sorting amplifies affective polarization through reduced cross-party social contact and exposure only to partisan media.

5. Important nuance: actual policy disagreement hasn't grown nearly as much

This is the counterintuitive part. Despite all the animosity, the general public is less divided on a range of issues than in the past, and many policies have bipartisan support. Recent data back this up: 79% support Medicare drug negotiation, 76% pre-existing conditions protections, and 70% marijuana decriminalization — across party lines. In other words, Americans increasingly dislike each other more than they actually disagree on substance — a gap political scientists specifically flag as one of the most important findings in political science research on polarization.

6. Global context

This isn't purely an American story, but the U.S. is an outlier. Comparative data from 21 high-income countries reveals a small but significant increase in elite ideological polarization, with Canada and Australia showing low polarization compared to Spain, Italy and Sweden. Other sources note that while political polarization is growing in other countries worldwide, it is more dramatic in the United States.

Bottom line

By almost every modern metric tracked since the 1970s–1990s — congressional voting behavior, partisan self-identification, and especially mutual animosity between the parties — polarization in the U.S. is at or near record highs for the post-WWII era. The big caveats are that (1) some scholars argue it still doesn't rival the polarization of the Civil War/Reconstruction era, and (2) much of the surge is "affective" (emotional dislike) rather than genuine disagreement over policy substance, where the public is often less divided than the rhetoric suggests.