Turns out Democrats and Republicans agree on many things | Opinion

If you spend enough time watching cable news, scrolling social media or listening to political consultants, you could be forgiven for believing Americans agree on almost nothing. Every debate seems to reinforce the same message: The country is hopelessly polarized along partisan lines. But is that really true?

While many others are focused on what divides us, at the University of Maryland's Program for Public Consultation (PPC), we've been asking a different question: Where is there common ground among Americans?

The answers may surprise you. We actually agree on far more issues than one might expect, given all the partisan strife we see in Congress and in the news.

Of course, Americans do not share all the same cultural touchpoints, viewpoints or politics. But it turns out Democrats and Republicans are like-minded on many of the most vexing issues facing our country. We know because we asked.

Americans agree more than you might think on things that matter

Our new national surveys reveal something that rarely makes headlines: There is widespread common ground on scores of issues that are considered highly contentious.

In our research, we identified 112 policy positions that receive majority support from both Republicans and Democrats nationwide. Even more striking, over two-thirds of respondents from both parties agree on 88 of those policies.

At a time when Congress often appears paralyzed by partisan conflict, Americans are much less divided than their elected representatives.

Consider a few examples of our findings:

• On health care costs, 86% of Americans support allowing the federal government to set maximum prescription drug prices based on what drugs cost in other developed countries. That includes 90% of Republicans and 86% of Democrats.
• On immigration, 83% support a package that combines mandatory E-Verify requirements for employers with an expansion of legal work visas when employers need workers. Democrats support the proposal at 84%; Republicans at 82%.
• On childcare, 83% support helping states ensure that low- and middle-income families spend no more than 7% of their income on childcare (Democrats 89%, Republicans 77%).
• On housing affordability, 83% support tax incentives for builders to construct or repair homes affordable to working families (Democrats 88%, Republicans 80%).
• On term limits for Congress, 82% agree (Democrats 83%, Republicans 85%).
• On banning members of Congress from trading stocks in individual companies, 76% agree (Democrats 75%, Republicans 78%).
• On requiring artificial intelligence systems that make consequential decisions about hiring, loans or health coverage to pass government-designed safety tests before deployment, 78% agree (Democrats 82%, Republicans 78%).

These are not obscure issues. They are among the most debated topics in American politics today. Most of these policies are in proposed legislation but are going nowhere.

Our findings challenge one of the most powerful assumptions in contemporary political discourse: that the American public is driving polarization.

Will our political institutions take advantage of how much we agree?

In reality, Americans often appear more pragmatic than the political system built to represent them. Indeed, 88% of Americans say that if they were more influenced by the people, members of Congress would be more likely to find common ground.

That doesn't mean there are no disagreements. Of course there are. Americans remain divided on many important questions.

The problem is that disagreement is all they hear about. Political conflict receives enormous attention because conflict is newsworthy. When Republicans and Democrats clash in Congress, it dominates headlines. When large bipartisan majorities of the people quietly converge on practical solutions, it often goes unnoticed.

The result is a distorted picture of public opinion ‒ one that may leave Americans believing we are far more divided from one another than we actually are. This matters because democracy depends not only on disagreement but also on the ability to recognize shared interests and common goals.

If Americans have common ground on prescription drug costs, housing affordability, immigration, government ethics, childcare, Social Security and AI, the country's greatest challenge is not a lack of public consensus. The challenge is for political institutions to recognize and build on the common ground that is already there.

The question, then, is whether our elected leaders and candidates are ready to actually listen to the people they seek to represent.

Dr. Steven Kull is a political psychologist and founder of the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. For more than three decades, he has conducted in-depth research on public opinion and democratic governance

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Turns out Democrats and Republicans agree on many things | Opinion

Reporting by Steven Kull, Opinion contributor / USA TODAY

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This story was originally published June 28, 2026 at 6:02 AM.