Abstract
Drawing on survey data from ANES, Gallup, Pew, and other polls, this article examines attitudes toward the parties and the party system from 1996 to 2014. A previous Poll Trends analysis of the parties, through 1995, found antipathy toward the party system but not toward the parties themselves. The data since 1996 demonstrate that extreme discontent now extends beyond the party system to the Republican and Democratic parties. The data also show that Americans have grown more likely to see sharp differences between the major parties, and to perceive both parties as too ideological. As for the party system, Americans express a high degree of ambivalence. On one hand, many believe that the major parties do not do an adequate job of representing the people, and that the country needs a third political party. On the other hand, there is skepticism that a third party would improve the quality of American democracy. Surveys continually register almost no support or even willingness to seriously consider support for a third-party candidate
Highlights
In his 1996 POQ Poll Trends article, Collet concluded that the American public expressed “extreme discontent” toward the party system, though not toward the two parties themselves, and that Americans supported the notion of a new national third party, but would not translate that hypothetical support into support for a particular third party
We are still in a period of “extreme discontent,” but this discontent extends beyond the party system to the two major parties themselves; and the public is still conflicted between its attachment to the existing parties and a restructuring of the party system that would see the emergence of a new national third party
There is no question that public disdain for both the Democratic and Republican parties has grown considerably since the mid-1990s and that the public understands well the polarization that has gripped political elites
Summary
Howard J., "Americans Attitudes Toward the Political Parties and the Party System" (2015). Government: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA. The Polls – Trends Americans’ Attitudes toward the Political Parties and the Party System
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