I was doing a post about opinions on the 2000 election, when I was diverted by a question on one of the surveys. "Do you think the country is -- or is not -- more deeply divided this year on the major issues facing the country than it has been in the past several years?" That question was first asked in December 2000, just after the Supreme Court decision to stop the recount, and repeated a number of times, most recently in 2018. The percent saying that the country was more deeply divided:
Date points are labelled with the name of the President (starting from election day rather than inauguration). The lowest perceived division was right after Obama's election. By 2013, however, it had surpassed the level Bush reached in early 2005 (unfortunately in wasn't asked again under Bush). Then it reached a new high just after Trump was elected. It had fallen a bit by 2018, but was still higher than the highest levels under Obama. The obvious thing to do next would be to break it down by partisanship, and I will do that in a future post. But I was diverted again by a question in one of the other surveys, asked just after the 2004 election: "Which comes closer to your view--because the election was so close, George W. Bush should emphasize programs that both parties support or because he won a majority of the votes, George W. Bush has a mandate to advance the Republican agenda?" They asked the same question about Barack Obama and the Democratic agenda in 2012, and in 2016 asked a similar question about Donald Trump, "Since Donald Trump didn't win the popular vote, his agenda should emphasize programs that attract those who voted for other candidates; since Donald Trump won the presidency, he has a mandate to advance the agenda that his supporters favor." The results
Both parties Mandate
Bush 63% 30%
Bush 63% 29%
Bush 58% 36%
Obama 74% 17%
Trump 53% 40%
If you break it down by party (using only the first Bush survey), the percent choosing "mandate":
Bush Obama Trump
Own party 42% 30% 65%
Opposite party 22% 10% 16%
Independent 23% 12% 41%
So there was an increase of polarization between Bush and Trump (own party more likely to say he had a mandate, opposite party less), and also a difference between Obama and the two Republicans (everyone less likely to say "mandate" with Obama). With only one Democratic winner, you can't say whether the preference for bipartisanship was specific to Obama or perhaps true of Democrats more generally. Hopefully the question has been asked since the 2020 election. In any case, the fact that 65% of Republicans chose "had a mandate" over "emphasize programs that attract those who voted for other candidates" after Trump had lost the popular vote in 2016 is striking.
[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]
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