If you spend enough time watching cable news, scrolling social media or listening to political consultants, you could be forgiven for believing Americans agree on almost nothing. Every debate seems to reinforce the same message: The country is hopelessly polarized along partisan lines. But is that really true?

While many others are focused on what divides us, at the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation (PPC), we’ve been asking a different question: Where is there common ground among Americans?

The answers may surprise you. We actually agree on far more issues than one might expect, given all the partisan strife we see in Congress and in the news.

Of course, Americans do not share all the same cultural touchpoints, viewpoints or politics. But it turns out Democrats and Republicans are like-minded on many of the most vexing issues facing our country. We know because we asked.

Americans agree more than you might think on things that matter

Our new national surveys reveal something that rarely makes headlines: There is widespread common ground on scores of issues that are considered highly contentious.

In our research, we identified 112 policy positions that receive majority........

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