TL;DR: New research across five studies and over 3,000 participants finds that partisans do not see moderates as neutral. They see them as secret members of the other team.

Does the Moderate / Middle Exist?

Can a moderate politician still survive? I have debated for years whether true moderates exist and if the political class measures moderation correctly. When I first started in this business, the conventional wisdom dictated that elections were won in the twenties. That meant 40 percent of the electorate voted right, 40 percent voted left, and 20 percent remained up for grabs. I am not sure that math applies anymore. With districts drawn to heavily favor one party, the middle ground vanishes at the local level. With political polarization increasing, is there a place for moderate voters?

With polarization increasing, especially on the affective side, is there a place for a moderate?

A new paper I came across from a Unveristy of Florida researcher (GO GATORS!) is confirming that moderates are on the outs – oustracized and looked at skeptically and the researchers studied the underlying psychology as to how and why.

Researchers Giulia Maimone (GO GATORS) and Craig McKenzie ran participants through abortion policy, the 2024 presidential race, and the Israel Palestine conflict just weeks after October 7. The pattern held every time. People who hold a strong position on a moralized, threatening issue do not read a moderate as moderate. They read a moderate as one of ‘them’, the enemy.

The researchers call this the “moderate as out group” effect. It has real consequences for anyone who writes messaging, builds coalitions, or advises a candidate on how to talk about a hot button issue.

Citation and Links

Title: Whoever Is Not With Me Is Against Me: The “Moderate as Out Group” Effect

Link: https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001957

Peer reviewed: Yes, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, an American Psychological Association journal.

APSA citation: Maimone, Giulia, and Craig R. M. McKenzie. 2026. “Whoever Is Not With Me Is Against Me: The ‘Moderate as Out Group’ Effect.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

Methodology, Plain English

The team ran five preregistered experiments with 3,272 total participants recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk and Prolific.

Study 1 asked partisans on abortion to rate eleven different policies, from never allowed to always allowed, on a scale from definitely pro life to definitely pro choice.

Study 2 repeated the exercise but asked participants to judge a fictional person, Jamie, who supported each policy.

Study 3 shifted to the 2024 Trump versus Harris race and measured whether the issue felt moral versus a matter of preference, and whether the other side felt threatening.

Studies 4 and 5 dug into the mechanism, testing whether a moderate stance toward the opposing side or toward one’s own side changes how it gets judged, and whether “I support both sides a little” lands differently than “I support neither side.”

Results and Findings

The studies revealed a distinct moderate as out group effect. Partisans consistently categorize moderate positions as belonging to the opposing ideology.

• Pro life participants rated middle ground abortion policies (allowed up to 4, 8, or 12 weeks) as pro choice. Pro choice participants rated the identical policies as pro life. Nonpartisans, asked to judge the same policies, correctly called them moderate.
• The effect got stronger with intensity. “Definitely pro life” respondents distorted the moderate policies further than “mostly pro life” respondents did.
• The effect required two conditions at once: the issue had to feel like a moral question rather than a preference, and the opposing side had to feel genuinely threatening. Remove either one and the distortion disappeared.
• The distortion is not symmetrical. A moderate stance toward the opposing side got punished hard. A moderate stance toward one’s own side barely moved the needle.
• Framing mattered. A moderate position framed as “I agree with both sides a little” triggered the effect. The same position framed as “I reject both sides” mostly did not.

“The lack of out group derogation is treated as a stronger signal of group membership than in group endorsement.”

Deep Dive: Why This Happens

Think about a jury that has already decided the defendant is guilty. A juror who says “I am not sure” does not get treated as undecided. The jury treats that juror as someone quietly rooting for acquittal.

That is the mechanism here. The researchers tested whether the effect comes from disliking the moderate’s lack of loyalty to their own team, or from disliking the moderate’s failure to condemn the other team. It is the second option. Partisans do not primarily punish moderates for insufficient love of the in group. They punish moderates for insufficient hatred of the out group. Refusing to condemn the other side reads as agreeing with it.

Why do partisans reject the middle ground? The answer lies in group psychology and moral purity. When an issue feels like a battle between good and evil, there is no room for neutrality. Partisans expect their allies to actively denounce the enemy. This is known in political science as out group hate.

When a moderate expresses a balanced view, they fail to demonstrate out group hate. Partisans interpret this failure as sympathy for a moral threat.

The research proves that an absence of hatred for the enemy matters more than an absence of love for the home team.

In intergroup conflicts, hating the out group outweighs loving the in group. A moderate who refuses to condemn the opposition immediately looks like a traitor.

Framing dictates how moderates are received. When a moderate position is framed as agreeing with both sides, partisans reject it completely. They see agreement with the enemy. When a moderate position is framed as agreeing with neither side, the rejection shrinks. Disliking both extremes provides a shield against partisan attacks. The research tested this during the Israel Palestine conflict. Moderates who accepted the actions of both sides were cast into the out group. Moderates who rejected the actions of both sides managed to escape this extreme categorization. Neutrality is only accepted when framed as mutual rejection.

Why It Matters

Political polarization feeds on moralization. Bridge builders often fail because their efforts are treated as acts of betrayal. Candidates trying to appeal to all sides alienate everyone. This dynamic explains the rapid decline of nonpartisan media outlets and centrist institutions. Centrist positions intended to lower the temperature accelerate the division.

Classical theories of politics suggest that moderates should function as pivotal dealmakers. They are supposed to coordinate distant factions. This research uncovers a massive psychological barrier to that structural theory. Instead of being recognized as bridging actors, moderates are perceived as sympathetic to the opposing side.

This divergence explains why coalition compromise remains elusive in polarized democracies. Voters punish moderation. Politicians then avoid moderation to survive primaries. The cycle deepens the political divide.

Bottom line: A softened message does not get received as nuance. It gets received as a defection. On abortion, guns, immigration, or any issue that has been fully moralized in the current environment, split the difference and both audiences may write you off as the opposition.

Critiques and Future Research

The sample skews toward crowdsourced online workers in the United States. This raises questions about how well these reactions generalize to voters overall. Using Amazon Mechanical Turk is a choice and yields rapid results. Bot activity on the platform requires a small dose of skepticism.

All five studies test American respondents on American flashpoints. It remains an open question whether the effect holds the same way in less polarized democracies or on issues that are not already moralized.

The studies also rely on hypothetical scenarios and single issue snapshots rather than tracking real politicians over a campaign, so it is not yet clear how durable this categorization is once someone has a longer track record.

Future work could test whether repeated exposure to a moderate figure over time softens the out group label. Researchers should evaluate whether the effect shows up the same way for elected officials whose votes are public record rather than a stated opinion in a survey.

Future work could also look at context in local districts or larger statewide campaigns.

Practical Implications for Policymakers

• Expect that a compromise position on a moralized issue will be read by both bases as siding with the other camp, not as balance.
• Stop expecting moderate proposals to win universal praise from polarized camps.
• Pair any moderate policy stance with explicit, specific criticism of the opposing side’s position rather than silence on it.
• Anticipate backlash from the base when appointing moderate advisors to high profile positions.
• On issues that are not yet fully moralized, there is more room to hold a genuine middle position without backlash. Protect that window before the issue hardens.

Practical Implications for Public Affairs Professionals

• Never frame a corporate statement as agreeing with both sides of a moral dispute. Frame compromise messaging as “reject both extremes” rather than “support parts of both sides.” The data shows this single framing choice changes how the audience categorizes the messenger.
• Before running a nuanced message on a moralized issue, test whether your target audience currently perceives the opposing side as a threat. If threat perception is high, expect the moderate framing to fail.
• Do not assume a centrist ad wins over undecided voters by default. Test it against both partisan audiences, not just against the middle.

The Takeaway

The middle used to be a bridge. This research suggests that on the issues people care about most, the middle has become just another side. Both camps assign it to the enemy.

The middle is a no man’s land of dead armadillos in the middle of the road.

Finding common ground requires more than splitting the difference. It requires dismantling the perception of moral threat.

The strategic question is no longer how to sound reasonable. It is whether “reasonable”, “pragmatic” is a position anyone is allowed to hold anymore.

Trust me when I tell you, the middle is a dangerous place in a polarized world.