The polarization of American politics, in one map

(Image credit: iStock)

If it feels like American politics have become more polarized in recent years, that's because they have. A new study from researchers at Princeton, Georgetown, and the University of Oregon finds that red states have been getting redder and blue states have been getting bluer over the past two decades:

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At the state level, Republicans are moving to the right and Democrats to the left, but of the two trends, the leftward swing has been more significant. Meanwhile, voters have tended to replace moderate Democrats with Republicans in recent elections, meaning state legislatures have shifted slightly right on balance while hosting Democratic representatives who more fiercely oppose that consensus.

The researchers connected increased polarization with greater income inequality, finding that moderate Democrats were most likely to be ousted in favor of Republicans in places where income inequality is rising most quickly.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.