The better-informed are the more divided — at every reading

Partisan gap on liberal–conservative self-placement (weighted Republican mean minus Democratic mean, 7-point scale; higher = further apart), among high-knowledge vs. low-knowledge respondents, by year.

High‑knowledge partisans Low‑knowledge partisans dashed = 2024 (only 3 of 5 items asked)

Take-away: more political knowledge goes with a wider partisan gap, not a narrower one — and the high-knowledge line climbs while the low-knowledge line stays flat.

The gap between the lines is the “gap‑gap”: how much wider the partisan divide runs among the well-informed. It averaged +1.28 through 1990 and +1.62 from 2012 on. In 2020, high-knowledge partisans differed by +2.90 on the scale against +0.64 among the least informed. Source: ANES Cumulative File, weighted; knowledge = mean of available factual items (respondents with ≥ 2 items; high ≥ 0.67, low ≤ 0.34). The 2024 point is dashed (see Notes).

How much wider the partisan gap runs among the well-informed

The gap‑gap: partisan gap among high-knowledge minus the gap among low-knowledge respondents, by year. The lighter line holds education fixed (computed within college and non-college, then pooled).

Gap‑gap (raw) Net of education

Take-away: holding education fixed barely dents the pattern — the knowledgeable sort harder whether or not they hold a degree.

Both lines trend upward; the education-net line tracks the raw one, so the sharpening is not a disguised diploma divide. The dashed final segment marks 2024, when only three of the five knowledge items were fielded and the low-knowledge cell becomes unreliable (see Notes). Source: ANES, weighted.

Up close, 2020: the informed camps barely overlap

Distribution of liberal–conservative self-placement (1 = most liberal, 7 = most conservative) by party, among low- vs. high-knowledge respondents. Weighted shares.

Take-away: among the least informed the two parties' curves sit nearly on top of each other; among the best informed they pull to opposite ends of the scale.

Knowledge widens the distance between the party means from +0.64 (low-knowledge) to +2.90 (high-knowledge) in 2020. Source: ANES 2020, weighted; respondents valid on ≥ 2 knowledge items.