Even though eight out of 10 Americans say we live in a "divided" country, according to a new LX News/YouGov poll, that figure is lower than two similar polls found during the final months of the Trump presidency.
And the number of Americans today who indicated that the country is "united" — at 12% — is twice as high as it was in the days following the January 2021 attack on the Capitol.
However, respondents were hesitant to give President Joe Biden credit for any shift, with only 19% of U.S. adults polled indicating the country has become more united under Biden and 45% saying the country is more divided than it was 21 months ago.
“I’m struck by how uniform the belief is that the country is divided, not united,” said Carl Bialik, YouGov’s vice president of data science and U.S. politics editor. “More than 60% agree, [across] age, race, party, region, gender, and income groups.
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“For the country, a sense of division appears to be a unifying belief,” he said.
Compared to polls conducted in November 2020 and January 2021, this most recent survey found fewer U.S. adults today believe the president should prioritize unity above his the legislative agenda he campaigned on.
Following the Jan. 6 attacks, LX News & YouGov found 52% of Americans wanted Biden to prioritize unity over his legislative agenda – compared to just 28% who wanted him to prioritize his legislative agenda.
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However, in the newest survey, polled Sept. 8-11, only 35% of respondents said they wanted Biden to prioritize unity, with a nearly unchanged share of respondents (26%) saying they wanted him to prioritize the agenda he campaigned on. A growing number of respondents (22%) said they weren’t sure which should be a priority right now.
See complete results from the Sept. 8-11 survey here.
Biden the Uniter?
While measures of unity have inched up since the 2020 election, few Americans seem to feel it.
In November 2020, a plurality of U.S. adults expected Biden to have a unifying effect on America. However, two years later, they were more than twice as likely to now say he had the opposite effect.
Forty percent of Democrats say the country is more united today than it was when Biden took office, compared to just 3% of Republicans and 15% of independents.
“I think we have failed in the messaging,” said U.S. Rep. Norma Torres (D-Cali.), a Biden ally. “The messaging has not been heard in a way that all of our constituents could understand.”
A spokesperson from the White House did not return a request for comment, but Torres applauded the president’s efforts to bring back what she described as “decency,” “accountability” and “speaking truth to power.”
“I think the president has maintained this unrealistic goal of trying to bring about peace with ‘MAGA Republicans’ who refuse to legislate with us,” she said. “I think it's time the president stand up for the values of the American people.”
Young Adults See Less Division
Following Biden’s 2020 victory, 81% of adults under the age of 30 said they believed America was more divided than united, but that figure has fallen to 64% today.
Gen Z and young Millennial adults were less likely to say the country is divided than older generations.
However, only 23% of adults under 30 say the country is more united today than it was when President Biden took office, compared to the 55% who believed in November 2020 that Biden would be able to bring the country closer together.
Little Shift on Attitudes Toward Trump Guilt
The September 2022 survey also asked whether former President Trump committed crimes as president, and although the number of Americans who responded “yes” ticked up by several points after Jan. 6, the figure has again fallen to 49%, a statistical tie with where the question polled (50%) shortly after the November 2020 election.
One slight shift, however, is a decline in the number of Republicans who now say the former president did not commit crimes in office (68%), compared to an 88% figure in November 2020.
Overall, 33% of Americans say Trump did not commit crimes in office, a drop of 10 points since November 2020, with much of the change coming from older Americans and Republican voters who are now less likely to staunchly defend the former president’s actions.
Interestingly enough, when asked in November 2020 if presidents should be allowed to pardon themselves, just 3% of Democrats said yes. Twenty-six percent of Republicans said yes at the time.
But today, with a Democrat now in the White House, support for a president’s ability to pardon oneself has grown to 15% among Democrats and shrunk to 8% of Republicans. Nevertheless, the idea was widely panned by respondents in November 2020 (72% opposed self-pardon) and remains similarly unpopular today (70% oppose).
The LX News/YouGov polls surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults in Sept. 2022; 1,200 adults in January 2021, and 1,200 adults in November 2021. The margins of error range between 3% and 4%.
Noah Pransky is LX News’ National Political Editor, covering Washington and state politics, with a special focus on young voters. His political and investigative work has been honored with national Murrow, Polk, duPont and Cronkite awards, and you can contact him confidentially at noah.pransky@nbcuni.com, or on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
