James Carville and Mary Matalin made headlines when they married in 1993, despite Carville serving as campaign manager for Democratic Bill Clinton at the same time that Matalin was deputy campaign manager for Republican George H.W. Bush.
Nearly 30 years later, Carville and Matalin are living proof of love’s power to unite.
Bipartisan relationships aren’t common. In 2016, 9 percent of married couples were made up of a registered Republican married to a registered Democrat, according to a study by Yair Ghitza. Unfortunately, there is not data showing how many of those marriages survived the 2016 and/or 2020 elections.
Sally and Mark Stevens’ marriage has not only survived those elections, but continues to thrive despite Sally describing herself as a left wing liberal and Mark as a hardcore conservative.
“There are not a lot of good politicians, but there are good marriages, and we have one of those,” Mark said.
The couple met when Mark served as trapshooting coach for Sally’s children, despite Sally being opposed to using guns. What could have been an issue that drove them apart actually drew them together as Mark convinced Sally to give shooting a chance, and she decided to give him a chance, as well.
“The political part didn’t even come into play when we were getting to know each other because our values were so similar,” Sally said. “ … We volunteer our time. Family is important to us. Being good role models, being mentors is important to us. We are both educators in different ways. All the similarities made us fall in love with each other. We didn’t talk about politics much.”
Cory Fleck, a graduate student and member of the Social Interaction Lab at the University of Minnesota, says that is not uncommon.
“There is some research out there that has shown that on average, people tend not to advertise their political beliefs – although I would say this was done before dating apps made it a little bit easier – and that in the early stages of selection for a lot of people it doesn't seem to be as important as people who study politics might believe,” Fleck said.
Fleck doesn’t doubt that political beliefs play an important role in many relationships. He is currently researching political beliefs in newly formed romantic relationships and working to determine when in a relationship political views become more important.
One finding that has been documented is “by the time that people are married, they tend to be very similar to their partners in political attitudes, and also that they tend to not get more similar over the course of the marriage,” Fleck said. “This would suggest that, once people reach this point of their relationship, they are no longer really impacting each other’s political beliefs, one way or the other, and it is less likely to influence relationship quality.”
Sally and Mark say their political views have not changed over the course of their 12-year marriage, but, as people, they have changed in other ways.
“I don’t mean I’ve become more conservative or he’s become more liberal,” Sally said. “We have a better understanding of the other person’s viewpoint.”
That has been achieved by listening to each other’s concerns and deepest convictions.
“It’s possible that being able to communicate the areas where there are similarities in values or goals, but not in policy positions, could play a role,” Fleck said.
For Mark, love is being “able to lay your life down for the other.” Sally added that their love is unconditional.
While Fleck said such unconditional love is a difficult concept to study empirically, he does believe that commitment is key to successful relationships, regardless of political beliefs.
“People who are committed in their relationships tend to be more likely to sacrifice to help maintain a relationship or to change the way that they think about things to maintain their relationship,” Fleck said. “So, it could be possible that those who are committed might be more willing to adjust their beliefs, or the importance of those beliefs to help maintain the relationship.”
At a time of increasing negative partisanship, people have a greater dislike of people who identify with the opposite political party, according to Fleck.
Sally encourages others to look beyond those differences.
“We talk about labels of being a Democrat or Republican, and how much we focus on those things, when we’ve forgotten those are just a small part of our beliefs as individuals,” Sally said. “We need to look at the person first.”
