The Midterm Winner Will Be Whichever Party Americans Hate Less
U.S. voters continue to be motivated more by whom they loathe than whom they like.
To the extent polls can be trusted, the smart money has Democrats prevailing in the upcoming midterm elections, taking control of the U.S. House and possibly the Senate. Whether or not that's true, the outcome is likely to be more a repudiation of the losers than an embrace of the winners. For years, American politics has been increasingly driven more by hostility to one party rather than by enthusiasm for its counterpart, especially among the independents who decide elections. With support for the two major parties continuing a decadeslong decline, the midterms are likely to be decided by revulsion.
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Opposition to the Other Party Drives Voters More Than Support for Their Own
Last week, Pew Research's Steven Shepard reported that more than half of Americans still consider themselves to be either Republicans or Democrats. These dedicated partisans "say they identify this way because they view their own party's policies as good for the country and the other party's policies as harmful."
"But many Americans don't consider themselves Republicans or Democrats," he added. "Instead, these Americans identify as independents (or with some other party) and many 'lean' toward one of the two major parties. For these Americans, opposition to the other party's policies is more of a motivating factor than support for the policies of the party they lean toward."
While 72 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats support their selected party because they believe its policies are beneficial, slightly larger shares of each (73 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of Democrats) say the opposing party's policies are harmful for the country.
For independents who lean towards one party or the other, it's almost all about opposition.
Growing Ranks of Independents Mostly Motivated by Dislike
"Majorities of Republican leaners (56%) and Democratic leaners (64%) say a major reason they lean toward their preferred party is that the other party's policies are harmful," adds Shepard. "Relatively few Republican leaners (34%) and Democratic leaners (27%) say a major reason they lean toward their preferred party is the perceived good of its policies."
That matters quite a bit in terms of election outcomes and what makes for effective campaigning, because while supporters of the two major parties still constitute a majority of the population, it's a bare majority.
"A record-high 45% of U.S. adults identified as political independents in 2025, surpassing the 43% measured in 2014, 2023 and 2024," Gallup's Jeffrey M. Jones noted in January of the polling firm's ongoing research. "Meanwhile, equal shares of U.S. adults — 27% each — identified as either Democrats or Republicans." Twenty years ago, Democrats and independents each made up 34 percent of the electorate, and 30 percent favored Republicans. In 1988, the first year for which data is available, Democrats had 36 percent, followed by independents at 33 percent, and 31 percent for Republicans.
With independents making their political picks based on hostility to one party or the other even as they constitute a growing share of voters, that means American elections are decided more by rejection of disfavored candidates than by support for those who win. Dislike-fueled "affective polarization" has been a growing phenomenon in politics for a long time.
The Rise of Politics Powered by Animosity
"While previously polarization was primarily seen only in issue-based terms, a new type of division has emerged in the mass public in recent years: Ordinary Americans increasingly dislike and distrust those from the other party," according to a 2019 paper in the Annual Review of Political Science. "Democrats and Republicans both say that the other party's members are hypocritical, selfish, and closed-minded, and they are unwilling to socialize across party lines. This phenomenon of animosity between the parties is known as affective polarization."
We see this at play when partisan Republicans and Democrats report being more motivated by hostility to the other party's positions than by affection for their own, as found by Pew. It's even more apparent when growing ranks of independents are mostly motivated by such dislike.
In a 2019 analysis of American politics, Johns Hopkins University's Daniel Schlozman and Colgate University's Sam Rosenfeld wrote that "today's parties are hollow parties" and that "more than any positive affinity or party spirit, fear and loathing of the other side fuels parties and structures politics for most voters."
Such hostility has resulted in sorting along geographic lines as people move from places where they feel like political outcasts to more like-minded destinations. In 2024, Ronda Kaysen and Ethan Singer of The New York Times reported that when Americans move, "Republicans chose neighborhoods Donald J. Trump won by an average of 19 percentage points in 2020, while Democrats chose neighborhoods President Biden won by the opposite margin (also 19 points)."
Americans make these tribalistic migrations in an environment saturated more with revulsion than attraction. In May, Pew found that 58 percent of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party and 59 percent dislike the Democratic Party. At 26 percent, "the share of the public holding unfavorable views of both parties is higher than it was several years ago."
The Spoils Will Go to the Non-Loser
Affective polarization—political choices fueled by hostility—has certainly helped to widen the divide between partisans of the two main parties. But it's even more in play among the plurality of voters who don't identify with either major party but tend to determine the outcome of elections by strongly disfavoring one or the other. Given that the electoral battleground is largely over who will capture voters primarily motivated by intense distaste, that incentivizes negative campaigning and demonization to meet voters where they are.
"We are, and have been for quite some time, at the point where the two opposing entities are systematically and intentionally undermining each other's legitimacy," Syracuse University political science professor Johanna Dunaway warned last year.
After next month's midterms, either Democrats or Republicans will congratulate themselves as winners. But the outcome will be less a matter of voters embracing the victors than rejecting the losers. The party that seizes more seats will inevitably claim a mandate for its policies, but the truth is that Americans just hate that side a bit less than the alternative.