America’s political system has undergone a dramatic transformation in the last 50 years. Polling data from the American public policy think tank, Brookings suggests that in the 1970s many American voters were less loyal to one political party. The Democrats and Republicans had to compete for these centrists or moderates because they could influence the outcome of elections. Politicians thus tried to find a common ground to persuade voters who did not have strong political preferences.
Rise and fall of the centrist voters
Over the last 50 years, the middle ground has shrunk. American voters are now sharply divided between the political left and the right. Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Legal Studies at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., David Schultz says the American political landscape is no longer a contest for the middle; it is a battle of the edges.
“In 1976, the electorate functioned on a classic bell curve where the vast majority of voters clustered in the center,” he says. “Projections for 2026, however, reveal a structural hollowing that has rendered the median voter an endangered species.”
Split ticket voter disappears from the poll scene
Essentially what he said is substantiated by Washington, D.C. -based think tank Pew Research Center, that fewer voters preferred switching from one party to the other and this has changed the way elections are fought. In fact, the decline of split ticket voting, which means casting ballots for candidates from different political parties for the same election (the presidential and congressional) provides a clear indicator of America’s increasing political polarization.
For instance, in 1972, 192 of 435 House districts (44.1%) split their presidential and congressional votes. By 1976, the number fell to 124 of 435 House districts (28,5%). In 1992, 110 (24.1%) split their votes, in 2000 it was 86 (19.8%).
In 2012, only 26 (6%) split their presidential and congressional House votes. The split vote figure rose slightly to 35 (8%) in 2016 before dropping to 16 (3.7%) in 2020, indicating that the decline in vote splitting was not a passing phenomenon but a broader structural transformation in which presidential and congressional voting have become increasingly synchronized along partisan lines.
“Most notably, the percentage of Americans identifying as moderate declined from an average of 43% in 1992 to 34% in 2024, while conservatism has been fairly steady, fluctuating around the three-decade mean of 38%,” according to a 2025 Gallup article by Megan Brenan.
Schultz said: “For Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, the electoral money was the centrist voter. This forced a coalitional party system where both the Democrats and the Republicans were ideologically diverse big tents, housing everyone from liberals to conservatives. Today, that logic has collapsed. We have moved into an ideological model where parties are internally cohesive, externally polarized, and increasingly incapable of speaking the same language.”
If you plot American public opinion today, the bell curve has been replaced by a bimodal distribution. The center has collapsed, and the edges now dictate the national agenda.
The swing voter who chooses not to vote
In the 1970s, campaigns spent their budgets on persuasion, convincing a voter to switch parties. Today, persuasion budgets have been cannibalized by mobilization machines. Modern swing voters don’t decide who to vote for, rather they decide whether to vote at all.
“When economic disillusionment hits, like the Hispanic mother I recently observed who, faced with a $140 bill for four containers of infant formula, abandoned the nutrition for a box of cheap noodles—these voters don’t flip to the opposition,” Schultz says. “They simply swing out and stay home.”
The strained American Dream
Schlutz says the “American Dream” that worked for baby boomers is a mathematical impossibility for many in Gen Z. For many millennials and Gen Z voters, the market capitalism that served their parents is no longer delivering.
According to the World Values Survey, the United States is one of the most rapidly secularizing countries than other countries in the world.
“While religion is a priority for 90% of older generations, fewer than half of Gen Z and millennials say the same,” Schultz says. “This secular, disillusioned cohort is the anchor for the three critical turnout groups that decide Democratic success, college-educated suburban women, voters under the age of 30 and persons of color.”
As the boomer era recedes, the parties will have no choice but to re-shell themselves to fit the demands of a more diverse, more secular, and economically strained electorate, added Schultz.
