Democratic and Republican lawmakers are farther removed from each other than ever—but they’re also farther removed from the views of most ordinary voters. Hoover fellow Morris P. Fiorina explores this hollow political center.

When the recent Pew study showing an increasingly polarized electorate was released earlier this month, the first thing everyone asked was what would Morris Fiorina say.

Research from Wendt Family Professor of Political Science Morris Fiorina shows that the American public is not more politically polarized than it was in 1976, despite the apparent polarization of party candidates.

In the aftermath of the most contentious Supreme Court nomination in modern history, many people are left with the belief that America is more polarized than ever. But the truth is more complicated. Watch Hoover Senior Fellow Morris Fiorina explain why.

In this podcast, three of Hoover's political scholars, David Brady, Morris Fiorina, and Tammy Frisby, discuss the two weeks down and the six months to go in the general election. Campaign issues—including the politics and policy of the president's announcement on gay marriage, personal qualities of the candidates, and campaign strategy—are the topics at hand. David Brady argues that this election could be 2004 all over again. Morris Fiorina disagrees, making the case for 1980 as likely being the better comparison. Tammy Frisby and Fiorina conclude with some thoughts on keeping the horse race in perspective.

“Nearly everything you read about [political] polarization . . . is wrong, or at least incomplete or misinterpreted,” remarked Hoover senior fellow Morris Fiorina. Fiorina, along with David Brady, deputy director and Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Tammy Frisby, research fellow at the Hoover Institution, sat down the day after the Florida primary to talk about American politics and the 2012 election. Stepping back from the blow-by-blow coverage of the presidential campaigns, Brady, Fiorina, and Frisby discuss how underlying conditions and both continuity and change in American politics are shaping the Republican primary, the prospects for the November 2012 general election, and races for seats in the 113th Congress.