CNN
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If you’re someone who clicks on an article about political engagement, you’re probably a person who likes keeping up with the news. Maybe you find yourself constantly scrolling social media. You care deeply about politics, and with so much happening, you want to make sure you’re on top of it all.
You’re not alone — but most of the country doesn’t share your approach to the news.
The latest CNN poll conducted by SSRS shows that the attention divide splits Americans roughly into thirds. There’s a high-attention group, consisting of the 32% saying they frequently seek out the latest news. A middle group of 31% has people who say they follow major developments but don’t seek them out. And then there’s the lower-attention group: 25% who say they pay attention only when necessary and another 12% who tune out altogether.
Those fault lines are key to understanding American politics. Highly engaged Americans were more averse to sending in troops to the demonstrations in Los Angeles, according to other polls this year. President Donald Trump scored better on immigration among voters who hadn’t heard as much about specific, high-profile detentions or deportations. And highly engaged Americans, much more than the other groups, believe that the nation’s democracy is under attack.
Those at either end of the ideological spectrum are the mostly closely plugged in: Fifty-one percent of those who call themselves very liberal and 47% of those who say they’re very conservative fall into this group, compared with 35% of those who call themselves only somewhat liberal, and fewer than 3 in 10 who say they’re moderate (29%) or somewhat conservative (22%).
Robert Timm, a 75-year-old Democrat from Ukiah, California, has a daily routine: He starts his day reading the latest headlines on Yahoo, frequently talks politics with his wife, and ends the evening watching the news on television, particularly MSNBC.
“I’m typically watching it fairly closely because I’m concerned about a lot of things that are happening in the country,” said Timm, one of the 2,539 people included in the survey. Many of those concerns center on Trump, who Timm says is “obviously trying to do what he wants, regardless of how it affects the people in the country.”
Older Americans are notably likelier to fall into this category: Fifty-two percent of those older than 65 say they frequently seek out political news, compared with one-third or fewer among any younger age group. Those with college degrees and in wealthier households are also somewhat more likely than average to seek out the news, as are White Americans and men.
Among the highly engaged, roughly 9 in 10 say they see important differences between the parties. Asked about a series of different issues, many have no trouble picking which party better aligns with their views. And a broad majority, 60%, feel that democracy is under attack.
Among those paying less attention, nearly 40% say their views don’t align with either party’s across a majority of the issues they were asked about in the survey. Nearly 3 in 10 see little difference between Democrats and Republicans.
“Honestly, I think they’re the same,” said Tyler Ruth, a mother from Hilton Head, South Carolina, who participated in the poll. “Different color, but they’re the same. Go about different things differently, but they’re the same because they all have money and they hold power. They don’t have to worry about, ‘How am I going to make ends meet for a couple of days until I get paid?’”
Nearly half of Americans who spend less time on politics say they don’t see either party as capable of getting things done, 10 points higher than among the mostly highly engaged group, and just 37% see democracy as under attack.
Americans younger than 45, people of color and those with lower household incomes are all relatively likely to say they follow politics only when necessary or not at all, as are people without college degrees. And although they’re not making an effort to seek out political news, most aren’t completely cut off from it, either.
In the past, Ruth said, politics wasn’t a top priority for her — she’s juggling raising children with special needs while also attending college for social work. But after hearing about cuts to her children’s care this year, she started following the news more closely, including efforts by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services to build a database for tracking autism.
In CNN’s survey, a majority even of those in the lower attention group said they still get some information about current events, and nearly half said they voted in last year’s election. Overall, those who did broke in favor of Trump, a finding that dovetails with recently released data highlighting the key role infrequent voters played in securing Trump’s victory. And it may reflect Trump’s strength last year in winning over voters who typically don’t express much trust in the political system.
“I’m not a party system fan at all,” said Peter Montes, a poll respondent from Conroe, Texas, who works in the oil and gas industry. “I think that the parties need to be abolished, and we need to reset.” While he doesn’t consider himself an outright Trump fan, he sees the president as bringing a business-minded ethos to the political sphere in a way he hasn’t seen since Ross Perot, and said he’s been paying closer attention to the news since Trump returned to office this year.
But looking ahead to future elections, he doesn’t see many other politicians with similar appeal. Nor, this far out, is he especially excited for next year’s midterms. “I’ll see the news, but I’m not going to go and stalk the news out to figure out what’s going on. I’ll just check in every once in a while,” he said.
The CNN poll was conducted among 2,539 adults nationwide by SSRS from May 5-26, using a combination of online and telephone interviews. The survey samples were originally drawn from two sources — an address-based sample and a random-digit dial sample of prepaid cell phone numbers — and combined. Respondents were initially contacted by mail or by phone. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
