America in One Room

September 19 – 22, 2019   
Dallas, Texas

America in One Room (A1R) was a historic gathering of 500 American voters who participated in a nonpartisan discussion about major issues in the 2020 presidential election. The participants—our citizen-delegates—were carefully selected to form an accurate, representative sample of the entire American electorate in all its political, cultural, and demographic diversity.

Over the course of the event, the delegates learned about the issues; deliberated amongst themselves in a thoughtful, civil, and substantive fashion; and had town-hall discussions directly with presidential candidates. Their views on the issues and the relative merits of the candidates were documented and shared with the public, candidates, and policymakers, giving a clearer, more balanced, and more informed idea of the political landscape heading into the election.

A1R was organized as a Deliberative Poll®, under the supervision of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University. The participants were selected using stratified random sampling, with survey work conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. A1R was managed and produced in collaboration with By the People Productions and is a Helena Project. For press inquiries, please contact A1R@sunshinesachs.com.

Table of Contents: 

Voices of America in One Room America in One Room—Election Follow-Up Snapchat Video Series YouTube Video Research Results Briefing Material Participants Press   
Webinar

Voices of America in One Room

Imagine being a part of a large group of people, all with differing points of view, socio-economic beliefs, and backgrounds. Now imagine you were asked to discuss a variety of important issues, such as the economy, the environment, and immigration. In September of 2019, a total of 526 registered American voters were brought together to discuss important issues that impact all of us. Participants were respectful, addressed each talking point more objectively, and simply approached these issues as individuals who are being impacted by them daily.

From The Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, this is Voices of America in One Room. Join us this season as we revisit experiences from the event, and talk about important social issues that impact all of us.

• Spotify
• Apple Podcast

America in One Room—Election Follow-Up

The participants in the Deliberative Poll in Dallas and the control group were surveyed in a recent follow-up conducted by NORC. 463 of the original deliberators and 710 of the original control group responded. They were asked about how much they followed the campaign, what they thought of the government’s handling of the Covid crisis and who they planned to vote for. Results for both the deliberators and the control group are presented here.

• America in One Room Election Follow-up Summary
• America in One Room Election Follow-up Results

ARTICLES

• These Americans Tried to Listen to One Another. A Year Later, Here’s How They’re Voting, The New York Times, 10/2020
• A Year-Long Experiment Attempted to See if Americans Can Agree on Politics, Ms., 11/2020 PDF version

Snapchat Video Series

Snapchat launched an 8 part video series based on America In One Room.

• 1: 525 Americans In One Room
• 2: “It Was A Judge-Free Weekend”
• 3: “I Was A Little Triggered”
• 4: “I Don’t Like To Be Called A Climate Denier”
• 5: “I’m Sick & Tired Of the Toxic Politics”
• 6: “It’s A Lot Harder To Hate In Person”
• 7: “We Have An Issue With Racism”
• 8: “I’m Surrounded By People Who Think This Is A Hoax”

YouTube Video

Former US President Bill Clinton discussed America in One Room at the annual annual Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lecture at Georgetown University Law School.

Research

• Is Deliberation an Antidote to Extreme Partisan Polarization? Reflections on “America in One Room," James S. Fishkin, Alice Siu, Larry Diamond, & Norman Bradburn, American Political Science Review PDF version
• Can Deliberation Have Lasting Effects? - American Political Science Review by James Fishkin, Valentin Bolotnyy, Joshua Lerner, Alice Siu and Norman Bradburn PDF version

Results

• Final Results Press Release
• Executive summary and overall results
• How Polarized is America . . . Really? Findings from “America in One Room,” A National Deliberative Poll

Briefing Materials

• Briefing Booklet: America in One Room
• Expert Panelists

Participants

• My time in America in One Room Times-Republican 2/2020 PDF
• Cranford Resident Participates “America in One Room” Political Experiment Sharon Steele 11/2019 PDF
• St. Joseph man listens to America The Herald-Palladium 10/2019 PDF
• 2 Woodland Park voters part of America in One Room workshop Pikes Peak Courier 10/2019 PDF
• Meet the Vermonter who represented the state in a voter dialogue published in NYT Burlington Free Press 10/2019 PDF
• Local reporter participates in national political experiment Gregory Times-Advocate 10/2019
• Bullhead City woman takes part in event to reach across political divide Mojave Valley Daily News 10/2019 PDF Middle American – My Experience with American in One Room Hannah Hodges Rivera 10/2019
• Sharon Fuller: America In One Room Caledonian Record 9/2019 PDF

Press

• Opinion: Turning around negative views of our democracy ctpost 08/2022
• Why Is It Important for People With Different Political Beliefs to Talk to Each Other? New York Times 07/2019 PDF
• How to get people to talk to one another again? Citizens’ assemblies The Harvard Gazette 5/2021 PDF
• Opinion: Finding that less partisan middle ground may just take sympathetic listening: Richard M. Perloff Cleveland.com 4/2021 PDF
• Could deliberative democracy depolarize America? Stanford scholars think so Stanford News 2/2021 PDF   
  Deliberative democracy – informed and moderated discussion that transcends partisan identities – can lead to a depolarized and more democratic society, according to Stanford research.
• Democrats And Republicans Should Argue More — Not Less FiveThirtyEight 12/2020 PDF
• Opinion: Biden understands what Twitter doesn’t: Democrats need a big tent Fareed Zakaria/The Washington Post 8/2020 PDF
• Democrats Win in a Big Tent (A1R Clip) Fareed Zakaria/CNN (Full Video on CNN) 8/2020
• Expansion: The Missing Link To Sustainable Diversity And Inclusion Forbes 5/2020 PDF
• World Changing Ideas Awards 2020: Politics and Policy Finalists and Honorable Mentions Fast Company 4/2020
• Opinion: Finding common ground: America can do it, can Stanford? The Stanford Daily 4/2020 PDF
• Polling Experiment Unites 500+ Strangers To Discuss Politics Now This 2/2020
• Opinion: There is Hope for How We Talk About Politics The Pilot 1/2020 PDF
• Opinion: Presidential candidates advance by being divisive. We can do better than that. USA Today 12/2019 PDF   
  Candidate Results
• Opinion: America in One Room Times Record 11/2019 PDF
• Can I Change Your Mind? BBC Radio 4 11/2019 MP3
• Why it’s OK to disagree about politics MNN 11/2019 PDF
• Eric Frydenlund: How to create a government that resembles the people Wisconsin State Journal 10/2019 PDF
• Democracy Dies Amid Lies, and So Does Sound Policy The National Interest 10/2019 PDF
• Stanford Researchers Bring Together People With Different Political Views WBUR, Here and Now 10/2019 MP3 PDF
• Mike Dennis joins John Williams to describe how he mustered a group of 526 delegates to survey on different political issues WGN Radio 10/2019 MP3
• Out of Left Field: America in one room The Island Now 10/2019 PDF
• The Monitor’s View: Friendship across political lines The Christian Science Monitor 10/2019 PDF
• Stanford students help bridge political divides Stanford News 10/2019 PDF
• Improving Political Discourse (1): Re-learning how to talk about facts across group identities Practical Ethics 10/2019 PDF
• Capturing a Portrait of the Electorate The New York Times 10/2019 PDF
• These voters represent all of america The New York Times 10/2019
• Fareed Zakaria GPS: What happens when you put a cross-section of America in one room? CNN 10/2019QJ
• Polarized electorate can get along, polling study finds The Daily News (Galveston County) 10/2019
• Government Professor Explores American Democracy in National Polling Project College of the Mainland 10/2019 PDF
• Opinion: Absent impartial practices and institutions outside the ballot box, democracy can’t work The World Post 10/2019 PDF
• Axios 1 Big Thing: The limits of political tribalism MSNBC 10/2019 MP4
• The limits of political tribalism Axios 10/2019 PDF
• President Obama tweets America in One Room @BarackObama 10/2019 PDF
• Fareed Zakaria tweets America in One Room @FareedZakaria 10/2019 PDF MP4
• Ray Suarez tweets America in One Room @RaySuarezNews 10/2019 PDF
• What Would Happen If American Voters All Got Together And Talked Politics? FiveThirtyEight 10/2019 PDF
• Why Is It Important for People With Different Political Beliefs to Talk to Each Other? The New York Times Learning Network 10/2019   
  Students 13 and older are asked to comment on the importance of interacting with people of different political beliefs and the America in One Room experiment.
• Civil discourse over “civil war”: Lessons of “America in One Room” Salon 10/2019 PDF
• These 526 Voters Represent All of America: And They Spent A Weekend Together The New York Times 10/2019 PDF
• How a weekend of discussing politics shifted the views of these Americans CNN 10/2019 PDF
• Opinion: This Experiment Has Some Great News for Our Democracy The New York Times 10/2019 PDF   
  The idea that our divisions are entrenched and unbridgeable is overstated.
• Field Experiment: What I Learned from Listening to Americans Deliberate The American Interest 9/2019 PDF   
  Turns out most Americans want the same thing: to be heard and understood.
• 526 people were asked to talk politics. The response tested American democracy CNN 9/2019 PDF VIDEO
• In Midst of Polarized Times, a Hopeful Experiment in Deliberative Democracy Shows Voters Can Agree on Solutions to the Country’s Problems Ms. Magazine 10/2019 PDF
• Democracy Dies Amid Lies, and So Does Sound Policy Lobe Log 10/2019 PDF
• What happens when America is condensed into one room? Partisanship fades The Christian Science Monitor 10/2019 PDF
• “Intense Democracy”: How Two Academics Are Trying to Break the Outrage Cycle Vanity Fair/HIVE 9/2019 PDF   
  An experiment now under way in Texas is testing a radical proposition: What if voters actually knew what they were talking about?
• North Texas hosts ‘America in One Room’ poll for 2020 presidential election The Dallas Morning News 9/2019 PDF
• Sharon man heads to Texas for a national civic experiment on election Monadnock Ledger-Transcript 9/2019 PDF
• Democracy in America is failing — here’s how we can still make it work Salon 9/2019 PDF   
  Democracy is supposed to reflect the will of the people. That’s not happening now — but there are ways to fix it.
• Opinion: What if There’s a Better Way to Handle Our Democratic Debate? The New York Times 8/2019 PDF   
  Americans can have serious and respectful conversations across our deep divides.
• John Dickerson discusses upcoming America in One Room Deliberative Poll Slate’s Political Gabfest 7/2019 MP3

Webinar

Lessons from America in One Room - a League of Women Voters webinar. Video recording is available here.