Good People and Getting Along: Young American Adults’ Perceptions of Politics and Romance

Whether Americans routinely seek to initiate relationships with politically similar partners amid intensive political polarization is settled, but why they commonly pursue relationships with those who share their politics has received limited consideration. Using 41 semi-structured interviews and 668 surveys, we explore young American adults’ explanations for why they sought to establish relationships with politically similar partners or were open to dating politically dissimilar others. Those who preferred relationships with similarly aligned partisans or independents routinely stressed that partisan affiliations, or a lack thereof, could be used to deduce whether others were good types of people with whom they could amicably spend time. Partisans and independents who were open to relationships with politically dissimilar others, however, stressed that political identities did not predict the quality of others’ characters or whether they could build harmonious, loving relationships. Accordingly, they were open to establishing romantic relationships with others who did not share their politics. We argue these results illustrate young American adults’ desires, or lack thereof, to be in romantic relationships with those with similar politics are frequently contingent on what they believe political identities enable them to deduce about others’ characters and potential for sustaining emotionally fulfilling relationships.