Strip away the party labels and most Americans share positions on most issues, when they answer on substance, without being told what their team thinks first.
Both parties serve their most engaged primary voters. The median American holds views that cross partisan lines and has no effective political home.
Congressional primaries are decided by 10–20% of voters, the most ideologically extreme in each party. General elections then offer two choices the median voter didn’t select.
Outrage drives engagement. Every major media business model profits from conflict. The story of what Americans genuinely agree on is consistently undercovered because it isn’t inflammatory enough to monetize.
Most polling asks people to agree with party-coded positions. When questions are stripped of partisan signals and presented as real scenarios, consensus emerges that standard polling consistently misses.
What Americans actually answer when asked about real scenarios without party labels, sourced from Gallup, Pew Research, AP-NORC, and YouGov.
Color-coded by type: Consensus (70%+ agree), Contested (real split, common ground exists), Divided (honest disagreement). Click any issue to see both perspectives and where the majority lands.
Live aggregate data from everyone who has taken the Grounded Majority assessment. Updated continuously. Demographic breakdown shows how views vary across age, party, and geography.
Enter your ZIP code to see your congressional representatives and how their voting records compare to the Grounded Majority position on each issue.
Data sourced from ProPublica Congress API and GovTrack voting records. Representative positions based on public statements, votes, and party platform.
16 scenarios across 8 policy areas. No party labels. Answer on substance. See your real position and compare to the national distribution.
Anonymous. No account needed. About 12 minutes. Real scenarios with genuine context from both sides. Share your results when done.
16 questions · 8 policy areas · Shareable results
Grounded Majority starts from a single premise: American public opinion is far less polarized than American politics. The gap between what citizens actually believe and what politicians claim they believe is the central dysfunction of our era.
This isn’t a centrist project. It doesn’t split differences for the sake of moderation. It follows the evidence of what majorities actually support, which often includes positions that are “left” on some issues and “right” on others.
The goal is to surface the real platform the country would vote for if it could, and to show politicians exactly how far their current positions are from it.
How We Present Issues