Issues move on different schedules

Each issue, the racial-attitude items among them, has its own partisan gap, its own timing and its own demographic profile.

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A widening party gap has no common starting date or direction. Each issue has its own partisan gap, its own timing and its own demographic profile, and on the economy the gap changes sign with the party in the White House. The part reads the issue histories with long-run party gaps first, then Chapter 4.5, Perceptions of the economy, then Chapter 4.6, Fifty years of racial attitudes. It closes with Chapter 4.7, Sort dates by attitude, which compares the years the gaps passed a common mark once the levels behind those dates are in view. A threshold date does not date a gap's origin. The chapters keep related outcomes apart, such as the level of permitted immigration and feelings toward named groups, or gun ownership and gun policy. Companion 4.6a, Racial attitudes and ideology is a companion to the racial-attitudes chapter and asks how racial resentment relates to party and to conservative self-placement. Climate and the environment, and racial attitudes after George Floyd's death, are on the research agenda.

Explorer for this part: Issues. Twenty CES policy questions: party gaps over time, demographic gradients, state and county estimates.

Chapters

4.1
The abortion sort
In the American National Election Studies, the share saying abortion should always be allowed was 3.5 points higher among Democrats than Republicans in 1980 and 52.3 points higher in 2024.
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4.2
Immigration
In the American National Election Studies, the share wanting fewer immigrants was 3.3 points higher among Republicans than Democrats in 1992 and 28.3 points higher in 2024.
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4.3
Guns
In the General Social Survey, the share living in a household with a gun was 6.8 points higher among Republicans than Democrats in 1973 to 1980 and 27.7 points higher in 2016 to 2024.
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4.4
Health care
In the American National Election Studies, the share on the government side of the health insurance scale was 24.4 points higher among Democrats than Republicans in 1970 and 46.6 points higher in 2024.
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4.5
Perceptions of the economy
In the American National Election Studies from 2012 to 2024, the president's partisans were 34.0 points more likely than the other party's partisans to say the economy had gotten better over the past year.
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4.6
Fifty years of racial attitudes
Among white respondents to the General Social Survey, the share attributing racial inequality mainly to discrimination was 30.0% in 2014 and 41.2% in 2018, after equal-treatment answers had risen from the 1970s to the 2000s.
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4.6a
Companion
Racial attitudes and ideology
Among white non-Hispanic respondents to the American National Election Studies, the correlation between racial resentment and conservative self-placement was +0.27 in 1986 and +0.66 in 2024.
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4.7
Sort dates by attitude
Among ANES partisans, the party gap passed a fixed threshold by the lower bound of its interval on racial resentment in 1992, on abortion in 2008 and on the importance of religion in 2016.
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5 further questions for this part are on the research agenda.