Report: Sharp Differences Between Democrats and Republicans on Race, Racism, and Policing

The December 2021 Daily Kos/Civiqs Poll asked 1,272 registered voters in the United States about their holiday plans, coronavirus, policing, race and racism, organized labor, and more.

Race and Policing

Most Americans see racism as either a major problem (50%) or a minor problem (24%) in America today. Democrats (89%) and Black Americans (84%) are most likely to call racism a major problem in America. Half of Republicans (50%) say that racism is a problem, but more call it a minor problem (40%) than a major problem (10%). Nearly half of Republicans (45%) say that racism is not a problem in America.

Attitudes towards teaching and talking about racism are highly politically polarized. Racism is discussed at home by 63% of Americans, but it is much more prevalent among Democrats (86%) than Republicans (39%). Democrats tend to believe in teaching children about race and racism at a young age (73% elementary school age, or younger), whereas 47% of Republicans do not believe in teaching children about race and racism at all.

Only 18% of Americans feel that police in the United States have improved how they interact with people of color over the last year, since the nationwide protests against racism and police brutality in 2020. Indeed, 9% of Americans believe that the police have gotten worse, including 16% of Democrats, and 25% of Black Americans. Most Republicans (54%) do not think the police needed to improve how they interact with people of color to begin with.

Holiday Plans and COVID-19

Americans are looking ahead to a more festive holiday season this year. Half (47%) say that this year will be more of a celebration than last year, compared to 39% who say it will not. Over one in three Americans (36%) will be traveling to visit family or friends for the holidays. Fully 61% of Americans are not making any changes to their holiday plans this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Although attitudes related to the coronavirus pandemic are typically highly polarized by political partisanship, this is not the case for the pandemic’s effect on peoples’ 2021 holiday plans. Democrats (34%) and Republicans (39%) are equally likely to be traveling for the holidays. Democrats are more likely to say that they are doing less than they normally would (47%, versus 12% for Republicans), but a larger share of Democrats (51%) than Republicans (44%) feel that this holiday season will be more festive than last year’s for their family.

Organized Labor

Americans have a generally favorable opinion of labor unions (49% favorable, 33% unfavorable, 18% unsure). By an overwhelming margin, Americans think that it is acceptable for workers to go on strike as a way to improve their working conditions: 65% say it is always acceptable, 30% say it depends on the situation, and only 4% say that it is not acceptable. Even 90% of Republicans believe that it is acceptable for workers to go on strike to improve their working conditions (41%) or depending on the situation (49%).

Civiqs surveyed 1,272 registered voters in the United States from December 4-7, 2021. The survey was conducted online, among selected members of the Civiqs research panel. Sampled individuals were emailed by Civiqs and responded using a personalized link to the survey at civiqs.com. The survey results are weighted by age, race, gender, education, party identification, and region to be representative of the population of registered voters in the United States. The general design effect due to weighting is 1.05. The survey has a margin of error of ±2.8% at the 95% confidence level, accounting for the design effect.