There is a widespread belief that Republicans and Democrats are worlds apart with respect to their preferences for redistribution

Nathan, Brad, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, and Alejandro Zentner. 2022. "Is the Partisan Divide Real? Polarization in Preferences for Redistribution." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 112: 156-62.May 2022. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20221070

Abstract: There is a widespread belief that Republicans and Democrats are worlds apart with respect to their preferences for redistribution. However, is that partisan divide real? In this paper, we discuss evidence from the General Social Survey and a tailored survey. We also discuss a revealed-preference measure constructed with administrative data. We conclude that the partisan divide is more nuanced than previously thought.

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How much income redistribution should happen, on a scale of 1 to 7: "Perhaps the most striking evidence of polarization is that in the 1–7 scale, the modal response among Republicans is 1, and the modal response among Democrats is 7."

"One question in the online survey [...] asks about property taxes instead of federal taxes: “Do you consider the amount of property taxes you pay to be too low, about right, or too high?” [T]he share of Democrats responding that property taxes are too high (36.9 percent) is not much lower than the corresponding share of Republicans (42.9 percent)."

"[T]he desired tax reduction is 28.46 percent for Republicans versus 23.42 percent for Democrats."

"Democrats want to assign 25.92 percent of property taxes to the poorer household, and Republicans want to assign 25.71 percent to the poorer household".

"It is possible that the differences between Democrats and Republicans lie mostly in the taxation of the very wealthy. [But t]he results indicate that as the difference in home values increases, the modal respondent still desires proportional taxes."

"Why are Republicans and Democrats so different according to the survey data from Figure 1, yet so similar according to their tax protest behavior? A simple explanation is based on the aphorism that “everyone’s a Republican on tax day.” That is, Republicans and Democrats may say that they feel differently about income redistribution, but those differences disappear when facing real, high-stakes choices. We posit a different, yet still simple, explanation: partisan differences in preferences for redistribution are exaggerated by some, but not all, survey questions."