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Stressed about political polarization? Data offers comfort

Posted at 6:22 PM, Jan 23, 2020
and last updated 2020-01-23 20:22:23-05

Americans have gotten used to regular political confrontations playing out in front of television cameras and heated rhetoric on social media even from elected leaders, but data shows most Americans are not political hardliners.

The New York Times published a story saying as much in their “Upshot” blog, and we at Fox 13 used their idea as a guide to look at how Utahns answer questions on hot-button issues.

We took the answers from 604 Utahns in the Cooperative Congressional Election Study on issues of immigration, abortion, the environment, gun control, health care and the minimum wage. In this chart a “0” means the percentage giving liberal answers to 0 out of 6 questions. A “6” means giving liberal answers to 6 of 6 questions.

As you can see, Utahns tend to cross the aisle depending on the issue.