Public opinion on the value of political compromise shifted dramatically from summer 2017 to spring 2018.
Asked to choose between the statements, “I like elected officials who make compromises with people they disagree with,” and “I like elected officials who stick to their positions,” 44 percent of respondents in a recently released Pew survey preferred compromisers, while 53 percent preferred politicians who stick to their positions.
Those numbers aren’t unprecedented in terms of what Pew’s surveys have found over the past eight years, but the swing from last July, just more than six months into the Trump presidency, is substantial.
In the July 2017 poll, according to Pew, “58% of the public said they preferred politicians who compromised compared with 39% who said they liked politicians who stick with their positions.” That’s a 14-point drop for the compromisers and a 14-point boost for the hardliners in about eight months’ time.
To be clear, the 58 percent figure form July marked a high (at least since 2010), and back in Pew’s surveys from 2010 and 2011, 55 and 54 percent of adults preferred elected officials who stick to their positions. But the swings appear to be the most dramatic in either direction since the start of the decade.
Here’s another interesting shift, per Pew’s write-up: “There is now no difference between Republicans and Democrats in their views of compromise. In six previous surveys conducted since 2011, Democrats were consistently more likely than Republicans to say they liked those who compromised. As recently as last July, 69% of Democrats said they preferred elected officials who made compromises; today just 46% say this. These views are little changed among Republicans and Republican leaners in recent years: Today, 44% say they like elected officials who make compromises, while 46% said this in July 2017.”
If that trend continues, it could make for a contentious 2020 Democratic presidential primary, giving those candidates competing for the support of the base more reason to race away from the center.
Pew’s survey was conducted March 7-14 among 1,466 adults with a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. (The sampling error for Republicans/Republican leaners was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points and 4.4 percentage points for Democrats/Democratic leaners.)
