Gallup Asked What America Needs Most. Republicans Said Patriotism, and Democrats Ranked It Dead Last

Gallup asked Americans a simple question: of 12 core values, which three does the country need most right now? Republicans' top answer was patriotism, picked by 46%. Democrats put the same value dead last. Just 6% chose it.

That 40-point gap is the widest split in the whole survey, which Gallup ran with With Honor, a veterans group that recruits former service members of both parties to run for Congress. Gallup published the results Sunday, nine days before the Nov. 3 midterms.

Before anyone says patriotism means flag-waving or chest-thumping, look at how the survey defined it. Every respondent saw the same plain words: "Caring about your country and wanting it to live up to its ideals." That's about as gentle a definition as you can write. Democrats still ranked it 12th out of 12.

Two parties, two different lists

The rest of the Gallup release reads like two different countries filling out the same form. After patriotism, Republicans most often chose responsibility (41%) and honesty (38%). Democrats led with equality (44%), fairness (34%) and honesty (32%). Equality was the second-biggest gap: 44% of Democrats picked it, compared with 10% of Republicans.

Gallup defined equality as "giving all people equal treatment and opportunity." Responsibility was "taking ownership of your actions and doing what you are expected to do." Put those side by side and you have the whole midterm argument in two lines. One side asks what the country owes people. The other asks what people owe the country and each other.

Independents sat in the middle and picked honesty (34%), responsibility (32%) and integrity (31%) most often. Only 15% of them chose patriotism.

Age split the country almost as sharply as party. Among Americans 65 and older, 32% said the country needs more patriotism. Among adults under 40, just 12% did. That's a little like a family where the grandparents still say grace before dinner and the grandkids are already eating.

Not a one-off number

This isn't the first Gallup survey this year to find the gap. In June, Gallup's long-running pride trend found just 33% of adults "extremely proud" to be American, the lowest since it started asking in 2001. Among Democrats it was 14%, a record low for the party, compared with 70% of Republicans. Gallup put the 56-point party gap close to last year's 57 points, the widest on record.

Read the two surveys together and the picture holds. Democrats aren't just less proud of the country. Most of them don't even list caring about it among the top things the country needs right now.

What both sides still share

There was some common ground. Three in four Americans (76%) named at least one value they think most people share "regardless of politics or background." Freedom topped that list at 38%, and patriotism came second at 32%. So plenty of Americans still see patriotism as part of who we are, even if one party doesn't think the country is short on it.

Nearly eight in 10 (79%) said it matters more for people to respect different values than to share the same ones. That included 84% of Democrats, 81% of independents and 72% of Republicans. Gallup ended its write-up on that note: "Perhaps, then, the ultimate shared value is that Americans agree to disagree."

Rye Barcott, With Honor's CEO and co-founder and a Marine veteran, put the problem bluntly to USA Today, which got the results first. Many Republicans and Democrats "view the other side as the enemy," he said. "It's a much more difficult place to start to bring some trust."

The fine print

The survey went to 3,199 adults in Gallup's probability-based panel online from May 12 to 22, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 points. People picked three values from a fixed list of 12, so a low score means a value didn't make someone's top three, not that they reject it. The results also sat for five months before release. Gallup and With Honor timed this part to the country's 250th anniversary year, and an earlier release from the same survey ran in June.

The bottom line: asked to name what America needs, nearly half of Republicans said love of country. Democrats, asked the same question with the same gentle definition, put it at the bottom of the list. With the midterms days away, voters can decide which list they'd rather have running things.