Is polarization really at an all-time high? I'll dig into historical data to compare today with the past.
Yes, by most measurable standards, political polarization in the United States is worse now than at any point in the recent past - though whether it is the worst ever depends on timeframe and definition.
What the data show - worse than the last 50-150 years
•As of 2025, polarization was higher than any point in current history, causing less collaboration and mutual understanding between Democrats and Republicans
•Pew Research Center analysis found that Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically today than at any time in the past 50 years. A 2012 Pew report also found Americans' values and "basic beliefs are more polarized along partisan lines than at any point in the past 25 years" since surveys began in 1987.
•Pew defines political polarization as "the vast and growing gap between liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats"
•The trend is long-term: Following a period of a much more balanced Congress during the middle of the 20th century, ideological distance between the parties began to grow during the 1970s. In the late 20th and early 21st century, the U.S. has experienced a greater surge in ideological polarization and affective polarization than comparable democracies.
Congress / Elite polarization
•Congress is now more polarized than at any time since the late 1870s Reconstruction Era.
•Another description: Political polarization — one factor leading to this gridlock — has become very pronounced.
•American politicians are highly ideologically polarized. This trend has grown in a steady, unpunctuated manner for decades.
•Polarization among U.S. legislators is asymmetric, as it has primarily been driven by a rightward shift among Republicans in Congress.
•When using DW-NOMINATE scores to chart political polarization, it is only in recent years that the level of party polarization has matched that of the Reconstruction and Gilded Age years. The Gilded Age of the late 19th century (c. 1870 – 1900) is considered to be one of the most politically polarized periods in American history.
•One measure: the overlap interval is now zero - no Republicans lie to the left of the most left-leaning Republican vs Democrat overlap, whereas In the 1960s, for instance, you had intervals where about 50 percent of the legislators in the two parties overlapped.
Public / Mass polarization
•The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%. Similarly, from 1994 to 2014, the share of Americans who expressed either "consistently liberal" or "consistently conservative" opinions doubled from 10% to 21%.
•Ideological overlap diminished: Today, 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican.
•In 1994, hardly a time of amicable partisan relations, just 17% of Republicans had very unfavorable opinions of Democrats and 16% vice versa. Since then, highly negative views have more than doubled: 43% of Republicans and 38% of Democrats now view the opposite party in strongly negative terms. According to Pew, members of both parties who have unfavorable opinions of the opposing party doubled between 1994 and 2014.
•Affective polarization – the gap between individuals’ positive feelings toward their own party and negative feelings toward opposing party – has increased markedly in the past two decades. Average feeling thermometer scores toward out-partisans have dropped from 48º in the 1970s to 20º today.
•Among Gallup self-identification, in 2025 the percentage of Americans self-identifying as politically moderate reached a record low of 34%.
Nuance - Is it worse than ever?
•Researchers note previous research suggesting that political polarization in the United States is more pronounced now than in the past -- at least among members of the nation’s major political parties, but there is debate about the general public.
•American voters are less ideologically polarized than they think they are, and that misperception is greatest for the most politically engaged people. Other research suggests that Americans are less polarized than they think, and that there is "significant ideological overlap and agreement on policies." and Although Americans are less ideologically polarized than they believe, they are very emotionally polarized (also known as affective polarization).
•One scholar argues that Political groups have moved further apart in recent years, but these divisions are still fuzzy, and Americans are not split into entirely opposing tribes when it comes to the issues.
•Compared to the deepest historical divides: the Civil War era and Antebellum period over slavery, and the 1860s, are generally considered more severe. Headlines describing today as "worst since the Civil War" imply that while current levels match or exceed anything since the 1870s-1890s, they do not exceed the Civil War itself. Some scholars note viewed within the context of data from the last two centuries — today’s levels are not such an alarming anomaly compared to those occurring during the time of slavery.
In short: If "the past" means the last 50-80 years (post-WWII consensus era of the 1950s-60s), polarization is substantially worse. If "the past" includes the Civil War and Gilded Age, current polarization is comparable to - and by some congressional voting measures equal to - those highly polarized periods, but not necessarily surpassing the Civil War peak.