When Joe Biden ran for President in 2020, he said he was doing so to “revive a spirit of bipartisanship in this country.” While overseeing the passage of a selection of bipartisan packages on gun safety, infrastructure development, and discretionary spending toplines, few would argue Congress has become a bastion of cooperation in the last four years. Today’s issue analyzes the state of polarization impacting Capitol Hill and which topics would see markedly contrasting approaches based on Party control.

On Polarization

According to The Washington Post, 2004 marked the last election when any Democratic member was rated as more conservative than the least conservative Republican member, denoting the end of a zone of ideological overlap. Analysis from Pew Research shows that members are decidedly farther apart ideologically today than they were twenty years ago; and according to Pew and additional University of Chicago research, Democrats, on average, have become more liberal, while Republicans, on average, have become much more conservative. Within both caucuses, however, there are even further internal divides that minimize the potential for cooperation, as several progressives on the Democratic side threatened to block the bipartisan infrastructure law, voted against April’s foreign security supplemental bill, and helped Republicans shut down any further progress on border security provisions. Similarly, the House Freedom Caucus has garnered countless headlines for its resistance to GOP leadership willing to work across the aisle, most notably when they removed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy for compromising on funding legislation with Democrats.

This polarization has been building for a long time. Experts cite several key contributing factors. First, the characteristics of each Party’s voting base, and concurrent representatives, have shifted in the 21st century. According to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, the share of non-college-educated Republican voters has increased by 30 percent since just 2010, while the Democratic base of Latino voters has increased fivefold since 2004. Also, the number of Democratic voters who identify as religious has fallen by around 35 percent since 2004. Almost all of this is attributed to a decrease in once-Christian voters – those who previously identified as Christian but now self-identify as not religiously affiliated – while Pew Research reports the share of voters from non-Christian faiths remains the same. These changing bases cause shifts in party platforms, but with those shifts come greater congressional divide.  

Social media has been identified as a leading contributor to partisan divide. The algorithms designed for our social networking platforms cause an “echo chamber” effect. A study of Facebook users during the 2020 election found only a quarter of the news content that Democrats post on the platform is viewed by Republicans, and because most social media posts come from a small segment of the overall users, extremists are able to dominate the platforms and “distort” the conversation.

Finally, one could argue the simple geographic sorting of Americans is a leading cause of polarization. While the American Political Science Association has concluded that some oft-discussed causes of polarization (i.e. gerrymandering, partisan primaries) are less impactful than perceived, it is not difficult to make a case that the differences in daily life between the average Democrat-heavy and Republican-heavy districts can form natural divides. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Southern states, where Democrats coming from urban, more diverse cities are “more liberal” than they once were, and Republicans from rural areas are “more conservative.” Representation in the Senate underlines this at the state level; there were 15 states with split-party Senate representation at the turn of the century, but only five today (that figure could drop to two after this election, as Democrats in the Republican-leaning states of Montana, West Virginia, and Ohio face reelection.) Republican Senate candidates now dominate the U.S. South and many rural Western states, while Democrats solidified holds elsewhere.
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On Platforms

Even as this election projects to be a close one, this ideological polarization will inform major shifts in policy platforms from either party, depending on who gains congressional and executive control. While the popular U.S. vote may be decided by just a single percentage point, as it was in 2020, an administration controlled by Donald Trump or Joe Biden would swing wildly on numerous issues. Below are the key policy implications of either presidency:

Taxes: As analyzed in a previous Prime Politics issue, the tax cliffs looming in 2025 could see drastically different policy measures depending on the Party controlling Congress and the White House. Trump’s enacted 21 percent corporate tax rate could be extended in the event of his victory, while President Biden proposes a 28 percent rate in his FY2025 budget. Biden would also propose capital gains tax increases to over 35 percent that could become reality if his Party is given a full sweep of congressional control.  

Biden and Trump enacted similar protectionist tariffs against select Chinese-made products, but Trump has also weighed a potential blanket tariff, up to 10 percent, on all foreign imports. Though Biden has preserved the vast majority of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products, his additional tariffs on Chinese products are focused the value chains related to clean energy and electric vehicles, targeting a category of products valued just below $1 billion a year. Trump’s proposal would impact the U.S. economy to the tune of $300 billion, according to Tax Foundation analysis.  

Energy and Climate: A second Biden administration could double down on billion-dollar investments in clean technology and the climate transition, while emboldening a more active EPA to regulate Clean Air Act and CERLCA rulemaking. While expanding renewables, a second Biden term would likely continue limiting fossil fuel power emissions, ash disposal, and wastewater releases by power plants. Under Biden, the U.S. also set a record for oil output this year, though he has restricted drilling on certain federally protected lands. With his emissions reduction policies and regulatory actions, analysis published by Wood Mackenzie predicts U.S. fossil fuel demand could peak around 2030 (though that agenda faces continued court challenges).

Trump claims the U.S. was energy “dominant” in his first term and that he would promote fossil fuel dominance if reelected. He has repeatedly discussed ramping up U.S. natural gas production on the campaign trail, and may consider tax breaks for producers of oil, gas, and coal. Trump has said that he will hollow out the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean industry tax credits. Achieving this would be difficult. However, his administration could chip away at funding for conservation, forestry, building efficiency, and other pro-environment leaning programs.

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Immigration: Immigration is an issue that then-candidate Biden highlighted to distinguish himself from Trump in the 2020 race. But the two presidential candidates’ positions have grown closer during Biden’s presidential tenure. Having been continually criticized for high migrant crossings at U.S. southern border, Biden endorsed a bipartisan Senate bill, considered earlier this year, that would have “triggered” border shutdowns and funded more asylum judges. Though that legislation failed thanks to both progressive and Republican opposition, Biden recently issued an executive order barring migrants who cross the border illegally from seeking asylum once a daily threshold is met. It is unclear, however, whether the administration will have the resources to enforce the new policy.

Donald Trump has often cited the six-to-seven million migrants who crossed the southern border in 2023 as proof of a “Biden invasion;” it is likely he would attempt to enact a “remain in Mexico” policy through executive action early into a second term, though that effort could be hampered by the newly-elected Mexican government, which would have to consent to such a proposal. Though his most restrictive immigration policy, “Title 42”, was enabled through emergency executive powers during the COVID pandemic, he would certainly restrict parole and has said he plans to carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history” if reelected. His powers to do so would , of course, be limited by Congress and the courts.  

Health Care: President Biden hopes to use increased tax revenues from a new package to shore up the Medicare trust fund and says he hopes to expand the IRA-enacted powers allowing the Centers for Medicare Services to directly negotiate drug prices to dozens of scripts. In the IRA, Democrats also passed enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, which Biden hopes to permanently extend in a second term.  

One of Trump’s key, if relatively unheralded, policy changes in healthcare was Transparency in Coverage rules that require most health plans to disclose price and cost-sharing information to participants up front. He also signed the No Suprises Act, to protect against unexpected medical bills and a measure allowing states to import drugs, when cheaper, from Canada. Though he continues to decry "Obamacare as a catastrophe,” substantial reform to the program evaded Republicans in his first term.  

Social Issues: Potentially difficult to legislate on due to tight congressional margins, it could be argued Biden has more to gain in sphere of social issues than Trump. Trump’s most notable social policy impact resulted from his ability to make 234 federal court judge appointments, including three on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court’s ruling on Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health continues to cast an effect on these coming elections, and given the 60-vote threshold needed for passage in the Senate, Biden can only pledge future pro-choice nominations rather than policy action on the abortion issue.  

Biden has tried, unsuccessfully, to fund universal student loan forgiveness through executive action throughout his presidency; Trump is not interested in such proposals. He is similarly hands-off on federal voting rights policy, while Biden endorses the For the People Act, which would create independent state redistricting commissions, expand mail-in voting access, and offer new campaign finance rules. On gun rights, the parties reflect their electorates, as 80% of Democrats want stricter gun laws compared to 36% of Republican voters.  

Clearly, most policy issues see a wide berth between parties as a polarized country faces a pivotal election. Whether one of these dominates headlines in the final months of this campaign remains to be seen, but voters are faced with immense differences between party platforms, arguably caused by our own disagreements across numerous issues.  

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