Democrats are moving faster to the left than Republicans are to the right, a phenomenon that is benefiting the GOP at the state level, according to a recently published paper.
The study, conducted by political scientists from Princeton, Georgetown, and the University of Oregon, evaluated the relationship between income inequality and political polarization and concluded that state Democratic parties are becoming liberal more quickly than their Republican counterparts are conservative, thereby producing a "more liberal Democratic party."
The American Interest reported:
The study’s overall argument is that income inequality has increased political polarization at the state level since the 1990s. But the authors find that that this happens more by moving state Democratic parties to the left than by moving state Republican parties to the right. As the Democratic Party lost power at the state level over the past 15 years, it also effectively shed its moderate wing.
As Democrats become more liberal at the state level, they have lost seats to Republicans and therefore granted more power to the GOP in state legislatures.
"The net result is that income inequality causes an increase in political polarization while simultaneously shifting the overall median ideology of state legislatures to the right," the study concluded.
"These results are consistent with inequality having a particularly strong negative electoral effect on moderate Democrats to the benefit of Republicans (who may or may not be moderate relative to the Republican party median), leaving behind a more liberal Democratic party."
Moreover, the paper debunked the claim made by many Democrats that the Republican party has suffered most from political polarization. The political scientists found "weaker evidence" of Republicans at the state level moving to the right.
"Previous work has documented that polarization in the U.S. Congress is strongly asymmetric in the postwar era; the median of the Republican party has moved further to the right than the median of the Democratic party has moved to the left," the study concluded.
"In contrast, we find evidence for a different asymmetry: within-state inequality has a statistically significant effect on the median position of the Democratic party, but we find weaker evidence of an effect on the Republican party median."