Surprise: American voters actually largely agree on many issues, including topics like abortion, immigration and wealth inequality

For a country that often feels hopelessly divided, it turns out that there is a lot of agreement among Americans. Nisian Hughes/Getty Images

As the presidential election campaign heats up, media coverage suggests Americans are hopelessly divided and headed for a difficult fall – perhaps also a tense January.

But that isn’t the whole story, according to reporting and poll results from the American Communities Project, a journalism and research effort we lead that is based at Michigan State University that analyzes the country by looking at 15 different community types.