A “Sorted” America? Geographic Polarization and Value Overlap in the American Electorate*
Published online on September 14, 2015
Abstract
Objective
Geographic political polarization is an increasingly salient topic of academic and popular discourse. Using Bill Bishop's bestseller The Big Sort as a foil, this article tests the claim that America has split into “ideologically inbred” “red” and “blue” communities.
Method
Drawing on Bishop's concept of “landslide” Democratic and Republican counties, the article uses survey data to measure the overlap in opinion between respondents from opposing “landslide” counties. This is done both graphically and with a quantitative measure developed by Levendusky and Pope (2011).
Results
Across economic, social, and cultural value dimensions, there is vastly more common ground than difference between respondents from “landslide” Democratic and Republican counties.
Conclusion
Hyperbolic claims of a “sorted” country aside, geographic polarization in the United States is limited at best. Partisan polarization could be a real and consequential phenomenon in the electorate, but it has little geographic, “red versus blue” manifestation.