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

Yes — by most measures, political polarization in the U.S. today is more severe than it has been in many decades, though the nature of that polarization is nuanced and some caveats are worth noting.

The evidence for "worse than before"

Affective polarization (dislike of the other side) has roughly doubled since the 1970s. Using the American National Election Studies' "feeling thermometer," the difference between Americans' ratings of their own party and the other party was 27 points in 1978, widening to 56 by 2020. A related analysis found affective polarization rose from 22.64 degrees in 1978 to 40.87 degrees in 2016, with warm feelings toward one's own party staying stable around 70 while sentiment toward the opposing party dropped from the high 40s to just above 25. That trend accelerated further: between 2016 and 2020, affective polarization jumped from 41 to 52.2 degrees as both in-group warmth and out-group coldness increased.

Congress itself has become far more ideologically divided. A 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. The moderate middle has nearly vanished: there are now only about two dozen moderate Democrats and Republicans left on Capitol Hill, versus more than 160 in 1971-72. Party-line voting has also surged — between the 1950s and 1970s, typical members of Congress voted with their party on divisive questions just more than 60 percent of the time; in the 1990s, this figure rose past 80 percent, and since 2000, it has exceeded 87 percent.

Partisan animosity continues to intensify in recent years. By 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. Pew's long-running tracking confirms partisans' views of the opposing party are now more negative than at any point in nearly a quarter of a century. And as of late 2025, a Pew survey found 85% of Americans say politically motivated violence is increasing in the U.S., with nearly identical shares of Republicans (86%) and Democrats (85%) agreeing.

Long-run academic data points the same way. A 2026 Cambridge study tracking opinions over nearly four decades found polarization almost flatlined during the nineties and noughties, then surged from 2008 onward — though it may have begun leveling off during Biden's term, while remaining far higher than previous decades. Part of this reflects sharper party identity: by 2024, 20% more people in the left-wing cluster call themselves Democrats and 51% more call themselves liberals than in 1988, while 30% more in the right-wing cluster call themselves Republicans and 39% more self-describe as conservative, compared to the end of the Reagan era.

Important caveats

It's not quite that simple, though:

Bottom line

By nearly every measure political scientists use — elite ideological distance, partisan animosity, perceived legitimacy of the other side, and self-reported tribal identity — the U.S. is more polarized now than at any point in the last 50+ years, with the sharpest acceleration since the 2008 financial crisis and continuing through the 2020s. The main nuance is that this is predominantly an "us vs. them" emotional divide rather than an unbridgeable gap on policy specifics, and some data suggest the rate of increase may have slightly plateaued in the past few years, even as it remains historically elevated.