Political Coalitions in 2076
Shaping the Next Political realignment to ensure all parties are pro-Democracy.
American political coalitions realign approximately every 30 years. We are currently living through a realignment.
We have an opportunity—with substantial and coordinated cross-sector interventions—to shape the next political realignment to ensure pro-democracy tenets are at its core.
Strategic Foresight for a Better 2076
In January 2025, we launched Pro-Democracy Political Coalitions in 2076 to explore what the next U.S. political realignment could look like—what wedge issues might separate the parties, what ideologies might animate them, and who would comprise the coalitions. Importantly, we wanted to understand what it would take to ensure that all viable parties are committed to democratic values. As polarization deepens and ideological divides shift, our aim is to detect early signals, prepare for a range of possible futures, and equip the pro-democracy field with tools to act strategically across those futures.
We convened a strategic foresight cohort of 14 leaders: membership-based organizers working to prevent authoritarianism and researchers tracking violent extremism. To ensure ideological breadth, participants include voices from across the spectrum—from Asian American Futures to Leaving MAGA, with contributions from Working Families Party founder Dan Cantor and policy thinkers at the center-right R Street Institute. We cannot assume authoritarianism will come from one party and must prepare for lines of political difference to shift.
What We’ve Created
Five Distinct Future Scenarios
We’ve developed five scenarios of how political parties might realign over the next 30 years. We are specifically interested in how the parties’ attitudes about democracy may change. We have scenarios where both parties are pro-democracy, where both are authoritarian, where the right is pro-democracy and the left is authoritarian and vice versa, and a multi-party scenario.
17 emerging spectra of ideological division
We’ve mapped a breakdown of 17 spectra of emerging wedge issues that may become the new fault lines of our politics, how we know they are emerging, and ways they are scrambling left-right divides.
Interactive Tool
We’ve made an interactive tool for you to share where you fall on the emerging wedge issues. The tool then provides information about where you agree and diverge with people who share your demographic characteristics based on other survey respondents!
Signposts
We’ve identified indicators on how we might know which scenario we are heading toward and where interventions could help swing us in the direction of democracy.
Recommendations
We’ve offered recommendations on how pro-democracy and community organizations can meet the moment.
This work is just beginning.
In our next phase, we’re building on this report in five key ways:
-
Mapping networks and ecosystems
We’ll identify the individuals, organizations, and coalitions positioned to act on the scenarios, spectra, and signposts—and connect them to one another.
-
Catalyzing interventions
Where our mapping reveals gaps in pro-democracy efforts, we’ll work to spur experimentation and coordination to fill those gaps.
-
Tracking shifts in signposts
We’ll monitor developments that indicate movement toward one scenario over another, and revise our recommendations for the field accordingly. And, of course, work to ensure those recommendations are enacted.
-
Validating the spectra
Through upcoming rounds of quantitative research, we’ll test and refine the 17 emerging ideological divides surfaced in this project.
-
Creating preferred futures
We’ll co-design additional future scenarios that reflect inclusive democratic values—not just the range of possibilities of could happen, but what we want to work toward.
Join us in Writing the next chapter of american democracy.
If you are interested in partnering on our Political Coalitions work, please share your information here.