Polarization defines America’s political landscape today. Political vitriol, talking past one another, and an outright lack of respect for different viewpoints permeates the air. BPR sat down with Celinda Lake and Ed Goeas—two political consultants and pollsters from opposite parties who share common goals— increasing depolarization, civility, and respect in American politics. For three decades they have overseen a national bi-partisan survey, The Battleground Poll, now housed at Georgetown University. They co-authored the 2022 book “A Question of Respect,” in which they provided their take on how our country became so intensely divided and what the path to depolarization looks like.—Spoiler alert: Respect.
Celinda Lake, a Democrat, is a Democratic political consultant and pollster. Lake has dedicated her career to working for and helping to elect some of the most important members of the Democratic party, including President Joe Biden, Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. While she unapologetically holds strong progressive views and is a paid consultant for Democrats, Lake is not afraid to seek common ground with those whom she disagrees with—and she has been doing so consistently throughout her career. In 2010, she co-authored a book titled “What Women Really Want” with Kellyanne Conway, former President Trump’s 2016 campaign manager.
Ed Goeas is a Republican political strategist, pundit and pollster. Goeas has served as the National Political Director for the National Republican Congressional Committee and has worked for the Republican National Committee and as CEO of Republican political consulting firm The Tarrance Group. Goeas has worked as a consultant to countless Republican congressional, gubernatorial and presidential candidates. Some past clients of his include Ohio Governor John Kasich, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
Goeas and Lake have the same job but report to work on different sides of America’s political divide. Yet they are partners in a shared commitment to find a path to depolarization.
Matthew Kotcher: You make the point in the book that Americans rank polarization as one of their top concerns. If that’s still the case, what are your thoughts on why Americans are so polarized? And is it getting worse or better?
Celinda Lake: Well, it’s getting worse, I think. And it’s still the case, and in fact, division and polarization are the number one problem in the most recent Reuters poll. And for Democrats, it’s like four times more than any other problem. People are also starting to link polarization to other things, like not being able to get anything being done, not being able to solve any problems, not being able to get our economy moving, not being able to solve climate, so people are starting to connect this polarization to other things. So it’s a huge issue out there, and I think both Ed and I feel that Trump was a product of it and a catalyst for it, but he was not the cause of it, and that there are cultural causes and structural causes for it, and we talk about that in the book and we take different chapters for each. But I think for myself, if I had one explanation, it would be social media and the impact of social media.
Ed Goeas: I would obviously agree, and I do think it’s getting worse. I think partially what is driving it is our politics in that we’re seeing lower and lower turnout in the primaries than what we saw 30 years ago. And so now we’re down from the mid 30s in the early ‘90s to the mid-teens now. There was an interesting question we asked in our survey, both individually and against each other. One was, do you want your member of Congress to fight over values, even if it means they don’t get much done, basically? And we had 71 percent say yes. Then we asked, do you want your member of Congress to compromise in order to find common ground and solutions to your problems? And 75 percent said yes of the very same group of people. But then when we put one against the other it came out 68 to 30 compromise. But the problem is the 30 percent who’s voting in the primaries, so they’re kind of sending a message on both ends—both the far right and the far left—that we want you to go and fight over values, even if it means you can’t accomplish any solutions. But the rest of the country, which I like to call the centrist part of the country, it’s somewhat conservative, somewhat liberal, and volunteers that they’re moderate. They are not participating in the choice of those candidates in large part, but they very much by the time they get to the general election, are somewhat resentful that they’re reacting to this polarization or pushed into this polarization. So I think there’s hope to move out of it. But one of the things we do have to do, and I think Celinda is right about social media, I tend to agree, but I think part of it is we have to bring more people into the selection process on the front end so that it’s more reflective of the broad middle that we have in this country as opposed to the far left and the far right.
MK: Thank you. So this one is for Ms. Lake, but Mr. Goeas, if you have thoughts feel free to jump in. In watching a recent interview of you, you discussed research that picked up, among other concerns voters among voters, fear of a civil war. Do Americans fear the possibility of civil war? And can you discuss what that means and the data about that fear and voter pessimism? And on what side or sides of the political spectrum does this fear exist?
CL: So this was actually a poll that we did together, Ed and I, and it was the national civility poll. And we’ve tracked this question over time, and the first time we did it, we had on a scale from zero to 100, where 100 is civil war. People were in the ratings of like 76, 77 as the rating of how likely they thought there would be a civil war, that that’s where they located the country at this point in time. And that’s been pretty consistent. I mean, it’s been up a little bit, down a little bit. Both parties agree on it. The bipartisan conclusion is that we are very, very badly divided and close to civil war. And now people think that this kind of disagreement that we have and polarization can lead to violence, and both sides believe that the other side might resort to violence because the polarization is so bad.
EG: And I would say we came within a step of it with January 6th. It’s very interesting, my wife was working in the Senate both during 9/11 and during January 6th. And my reaction to it was it was both acts of terrorism. One was foreign and one was domestic. But I didn’t see what happened on January 6th to be any less threatening to our country than what happened on 9/11.
MK: You talk about the importance of civility in your book. Can you name politicians on either side of the partisan divide who you think are getting the civility part right in spite of polarization? And can civility and polarization coexist?
CL: Well, I would call it respect, and that’s the neat title of our book. But yes, I think there are a number of elected officials. I think Joe Biden is one I would start out with to begin with. I think that Joe Biden truly believes in working together in a certain respect for people. And he has said consistently, and I think he truly believes: Whether you voted for me or not, I’m gonna work for you. I’m gonna represent you. I think that there used to be a lot of Republicans who reflected respect and all that, Ed talked about his own party. But I think that the control and the threat that Donald Trump represents to the Republicans in the challenges in a primary has reduced that even though many of them I think would reflect that. And you’ve got people like Lisa Murkowski, Joni Ernst who believe very strongly in respect and civility and have fought for those values.
EG: Yeah, I actually think there are more that are civil and want to be civil out there than we often give credit to. But again, many of them are having to take a certain stance because of the primary voters, so they’re looking over their shoulder on a primary. Joni Ernst, for example, last week voted for Ukraine money, and Donald Trump Jr. was on Twitter texting that she was a RINO [Republican in Name Only]. And she’s very conservative, but she’s a reasonable conservative. So I think they’re out there. Certainly our book is dedicated to John McCain. From my end, I ran his convention in 2008 and two people that he introduced me to during that convention I was working on, one was Joe Lieberman and the other was Biden. I think both Celinda and I feel we need more of those leaders to kind of light the way for younger people that haven’t seen it so that they can see that there is a better way.
MK: Differentiating resistance from civility and separate from thoughts about polarization, what is the role of resistance in American politics today?
CL: Well, I think resistance is just a tactic and you can resist and do it very respectfully. You can demonstrate. You can be at a town hall. I think when you’re on either side shouting people down so they can’t be heard, and that their constituents can’t ask their questions, I think that’s disrespectful. It’s disrespectful to voters as well as the members. But I don’t see any contradiction between respect and resistance. I think they are both part and parcel of the same thing. And I respect people that are resisting on both sides of the aisle. And I think resistance can make a big difference. I mean, you now have a solid majority of the American public who is for a ceasefire, a permanent ceasefire. That’s a shift in attitude that young people brought about with a lot of resistance. You have a lot of the Occupy Wall Street agenda that is very, very popular. It’s very popular to fight the merger of Kroger right now. That’s a Wall Street type action. It’s very popular to say no insider trading on the congressional floor. That was an Occupy Wall Street kind of statement. It’s very popular with the public to call for having a minimum corporate tax or having corporations that are profitable pay their fair share of taxes and their CEOs should too. You have Democrats and Republicans condemning the fact that the tax rate for secretaries can be higher than the tax rates for billionaires. And resistance I think is a broad range of actions. It’s boycotts, it’s statements, it’s demonstrations. I think all of that can be done in a way that actually can move the public. And look at, you know, the actions that LGBTQ+ people have taken have moved the public solidly. So there are lots of issues that resistance move the public and make people aware. And I personally, I think resistance is part of free speech. It’s part of our freedoms to use our money the way we want to, to have our say, to be able to stand up in the public square. But when it turns to violence, when it turns to hate speech, when it turns to drowning someone else’s voice out, then I think there’s a problem.
EG: And you know, obviously we both come from an age where that was quite active. The problem, and I’ve learned this over time with resistance, is that very often resistance will move to the extreme one end or another. Once you move people to the middle, that’s the common ground. And that’s when the resistance maybe needs to recede a little bit in their enthusiasm and start discussions of, okay, how do we incorporate the gains that we have here on what we’ve done? So if the people pushing the resistance is from the far right or even the far left, I just think that there has to be some compromises at some point, some respect for differing opinions in order to find the common ground to find solutions. Otherwise, resistance will not push solutions. I just think there are lots of things that are not partisan and that are getting presented as partisan because of the polarization. And because of leaders on both sides saying things like, “We’re not gonna let anything pass because we don’t wanna let X or Y look good.” That’s wrong.
Our Senate has been very guilty of that recently, our Senate leaders. But I would also say that you do have to be careful not to fall into the trap that common ground and compromise is doing things my way. And there’s some times they approach it that way. I also think sometimes issues get infused. For example, someone that I believe in very strongly, James Lankford, did a tremendous job on quote unquote the immigration issue. And I called him and told him I was proud of him and that I was sorry he got treated the way he did, kind of left out to dry. But I did kind of tell him that as he takes it the next step, and he is getting into it again, is that you have to separate control the border from immigration.
MK: So switching gears a bit. I wanna get your insights from your different partisan perspectives about Nikki Haley. Ms. Lake, you have spent your career analyzing what it takes to get women elected. Well, Nikki Haley is a Republican. Can you provide your thoughts about how gender and party intercepted in her efforts this past primary season and what her experience means for women candidates in the Republican party? And Mr. Goeas, I’m interested in your take from your vantage point about what her efforts say about the Republican party today and where it is going.
CL: I think the vote that Nikki Haley is getting has much less to do with her gender, her race, or anything else, and a lot more to do with the same thing that Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson have had on the Democratic side, the parties and have decided and decided a long time ago who their nominees were. And the voters may be having trouble with it, but that’s the decision. I think Nikki Haley’s been very exciting. I think she’s comported herself very well. She’s obviously way more conservative than I am, and has taken some positions on some women’s issues that I think are tough. But she has shown us what a woman president could look like. And my goal in 2028, because I want a woman president, is to have both parties nominate a woman and then we’ll see. And I think it might very well be a Harris-Haley contest.
EG: I started off the cycle and look, I’m not a Trump person. I did stay within the party to fight against Trump as opposed to running off to the Lincoln Project, which a lot of my friends did. But my ticket for the very beginning was to take it even one step further. I wanted Nikki Haley and Jonie Ernst to be our ticket to really be serious about that to move things forward. I always felt for years and years and years we’d have a black president before a female president. We did. I also think that the chances that we have a female president, it’s gonna be a Republican, not a Democrat. Just because some of the strengths of Republican positions gives some strength to that woman that you don’t necessarily see as a Democrat candidate. The thing I like about Nikki: First of all, Trump does not have control of the Republican Party. He has control of the primary electorate with the Republican Party and that they are overwhelmingly Trump people. And I would say the Always Trumpers is down to about 40 percent in the Republican party, but they’re comprising a good 70 percent of the primary turnout electorate. And the press is finally getting it. They said it after Michigan. They expected her to do fairly well in New Hampshire, which she did. They expected her to do fairly well in South Carolina, which she did, kept him under 60 percent, but no one expected her to get 30 percent in Michigan because she didn’t put much effort out.
And I think the press is finally getting the joke that not every Republican is a Trump person. You know, one of my concerns with Trump is that I’ve seen through the 40 some years I’ve worked in politics, that the president very often redefines the party why they’re president. I mean, I knew I didn’t wanna be defined anywhere like Donald Trump because he represents everything I’m against from a character standpoint. That was why I was against Trump, and that’s why I continue to be against Trump. What I like about Nikki is she’s out there. Most of what she talks about is what she’s for, not what she’s against. And I think one of the problems we’ve run into in this country is that we run so many of our campaigns on both sides of the aisle about being against the other side and being against something. We’re educating people what to be against, but we’re doing absolutely nothing to educate people what they should be for here in this country. And if we don’t start getting our campaigns to be more positive, we’re gonna continue down this negative hole that you know, a lot of the polarization comes from the negativism and talking about what the other side is doing bad versus what you’re doing that is good.
MK: So since this is a college publication after all, what is the single most important issue in the 2024 election for young voters? And after choosing your top one, what are the other top issues contenders for Gen Z? But please try and choose your top issue first.
CL: The top issue for young people in the polling is the economy. Now the economy includes rising prices for things. It also includes the rise, the affordability of college and post high school training. But that still remains the number one issue. And you gotta remember that this is a college publication, but you still have a huge proportion of young people who are not in college. And so, if we’re talking broadly about Gen Z and the youngest millennials, we’re talking about the economy, abortion is a very big issue for young women in particular. Climate change was the biggest issue. The climate change issue has been temporarily pushed aside a little bit by the war in Gaza, which is a big focus for Democratic young people. And I think democracy for young men—January 6th, protecting the vote. So those are the biggest issues, but they’re big buckets. And young people are also measuring things like the future of our country where we’re headed, when is the next generation of leadership gonna be given some space to take charge and bring their solutions to the table? So there’s a lot of things churning and going on right now. The last thing I’ll say is it’s not the number one issue for the presidential vote, but I would say one of the most important issues that young people have brought to the table is mental health. They have really legitimized that issue. They have brought it to the forefront. And every problem that we discuss, whether it’s homelessness, education, whatever they think that there’s a very hefty mental health component to it. And young people have really brought that issue to the table. And the rest of the book is following very fast.
EG: I tell you what the number one issue should be for young people, and that’s to get more young people voting at a much, much, much higher percentage. And people forget that in a presidential year, and this has been fairly true for 40, almost 50 years, that about 70 percent of eligible voters vote in a presidential election. In a nonpresidential election, only 40 percent of eligible voters. So in a presidential election, yes, they’ll be somewhat more involved and vote, but they’re almost nonexistent in an off-year election. And they need to be involved and consistent all the way through. So that’s an issue that I would say to the young people, find your voice. I don’t care what your position is, but use your voice and use your vote for that voice. That would be my message to them, whether I agree with them on that issue or not.
MK: So this is the last question. What issue, based on polling if possible, is giving you hope?
CL: Wow. What issue is giving me hope? I think that the bipartisan reaction to price gouging is giving me hope and shrinkflation, things like that. The voters give me more hope honestly than the political system does right now. Voters coming together in a number of states to protect abortion and including a lot of Republican women doing that where the states have gone too far, that gives me hope. The stance that we’re taking to protect our American jobs, invest here in American manufacturing, in good paying jobs for the next generation, that gives me hope. So the voters, I mean, any three voters in America can agree on more than Congress is getting done right now. And that is very discouraging. I don’t care if you’re left, right, center or Martian. And I think the other thing that gives me hope is we have the privilege of working for a lot of younger office holders and the primary turnout is so low that if young people join together, they can nominate someone. I’m sure there’s some people on the Republican side too. I’m just less familiar with that side. So Matthew, go run for office as soon as you graduate and let’s turn this country around.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.