Poll shows members of both parties see the other as ‘generally bullies’

The majority of Americans say that both major political parties view each other as “generally bullies,” according to a new University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics (IOP) poll. 

The poll, published on Thursday, found that 73 percent of Republican respondents agree with the sentiment that their Democratic counterparts are “generally bullies” who want to impose their own political beliefs, while 74 percent of Democratic respondents said the same.

Seventy-three percent of Republican respondents said that they think the U.S. government is “corrupt” and “rigged” against them, while 51 percent of respondents who considered themselves “very liberal” agreed with that sentiment. 

Seventy-eight percent of Democratic respondents said in the poll that they believe U.S. elections are fair and accurate, while 51 percent of independent respondents and 33 percent of Republican respondents said they also think that elections in the U.S. are fair and accurate. 

Sixty-nine percent of respondents who considered themselves “strong Republicans” said that they feel like “strangers” in the U.S., as did 38 percent of respondents who consider themselves “strong Democrats” agreed.

The poll comes as the partisan divide between both parties continues to widen ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections. 

Forty-nine percent of those surveyed said that they avoided talking about political topics with others because they don’t know where they stand on the issues, and 38 percent of respondents said they have unfriended or stopped following a person on social media due to their political beliefs. 

The University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics (IOP) poll was conducted from May 19 to May 23 with a total of 1,000 respondents. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.