Is Voter Interest in Bipartisanship on the Rise?

With four months until the midterms, a new public opinion research poll from the Bipartisan Policy Center and Morning Consult shows that voters across the political spectrum are more likely to vote for a candidate who finds compromise than one who pushes a single party’s agenda. This preference has increased among all voters by 9% since April.

A strong majority of voters think it is important that Congress works together to pass economic legislation (91%) while most Americans – currently polling at 70% – had to reduce their household spending over the past month due to increasing gas and grocery prices. More than half of voters (56%) want bipartisan work on economic issues, though more prefer that Republicans work on economic policy (22%) than Democrats (15%).

Additionally, voters think it is important for Congress to work across the aisle on health care (90%), criminal justice (87%) and infrastructure (85%) legislation. While voters want to see bipartisan legislation, the poll found that a plurality of voters’ grade President Biden and Congress a D or F on bipartisanship.

The poll also reveals that 77% of voters say they will accept the results of the upcoming midterm elections regardless of the outcome. This percentage varies by political party as 87% of Democrats, 73% of Independents, and 71% of Republicans said they share this sentiment.

Methodology

The poll was conducted by Morning Consult for BPC between June 29 and July 1, 2022, among a sample of 2,005 registered voters. The interviews were conducted online, and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample or registered voters based on gender by age, educational attainment, race, marital status, home ownership, race by educational attainment, 2020 presidential vote, and region. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points.