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

Short answer: Mostly yes — by most measures, but with important nuance

By several key metrics, polarization in the U.S. (and parts of other democracies) is at or near its highest point in decades, and in some cases the highest since the Civil War era. But researchers disagree on exactly how to compare eras, and different types of polarization have moved differently.

Congressional/elite polarization

This is the clearest case. Congress today is measurably more ideologically divided than at any point in the modern era. Pew Research Center analysis finds that, on average, Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically today than at any time in the past 50 years. Some political scientists who use the standard DW-NOMINATE measure of congressional voting go further, noting it is now more polarized than at any time since the late 1870s Reconstruction Era, following a much more ideologically overlapping Congress in the mid-20th century.

Both parties have also become more internally uniform: both parties have grown more ideologically cohesive, with now only about two dozen moderate Democrats and Republicans left on Capitol Hill, versus more than 160 in 1971-72.

Public/voter polarization

Ordinary Americans have also sorted more sharply along ideological and partisan lines than in the recent past. The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%. Partisan dislike of the opposing side has grown even faster than ideological difference itself — this is called "affective polarization." 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.

Geographic sorting has intensified too: in 1992, 39% of Americans lived in "landslide counties" where one presidential candidate won by 20+ percentage points; by 2024, 57% did.

It's not just the U.S.

This isn't purely an American phenomenon, though the U.S. stands out. A 2024 cross-national study found the US has experienced the most rapid growth in affective polarization among the general electorate since 1980 among 12 OECD countries considered, with five other countries experiencing smaller increases and six experiencing declines.

Important caveats and nuance

Bottom line

On congressional voting behavior, partisan animosity, and geographic sorting, the data is fairly unambiguous: these measures are at or near multi-decade (and in Congress's case, 150-year) highs. Whether this makes the current moment uniquely dangerous compared to historical low points like the Civil War, Reconstruction, or the 1960s is more contested — some scholars see continuity with historical "ebb and flow," others see something genuinely new, particularly driven by the growth of mutual dislike and distrust rather than just policy disagreement.