Common Ground's Mission: Make Government Accountable to the Will of the People.

What we are

Common Ground is civic infrastructure that converts individual civic potential into collective agency.

It makes the substantial cross-partisan agreement on policy that already exists among American citizens — visible, measurable, and usable. Where Americans agree, the data is plain. Where government delivers, or fails to, the record is plain. Citizens make their own conclusions.

Think of it as utility infrastructure, in the way electricity or water are utilities — serious, dependable, no-agenda. Not a movement. Not a party. Not a campaign.

Why we exist

Government outcomes routinely fail to align with what Americans actually want. This is not opinion. In 2014, Princeton and Northwestern political scientists Gilens and Page analyzed 1,779 federal policy decisions and found that the preferences of average citizens have near-zero independent influence on outcomes when economic elites oppose them.¹

Citizens feel this. Eighty-three percent say their elected officials don't care what they think — up from 55% in the early 2000s.² Roughly 80% of young Americans are skeptical that democratic institutions deliver fair laws, equal treatment, or meaningful representation.³

And yet — across 82 federal policies, Americans across party lines demonstrably agree. The disconnect is not a failure of the public. It is a failure to make public agreement visible and consequential.

Common Ground exists to close that gap.

How we work

Common Ground curates findings from established public-opinion research and translates them into citizen-facing utility. The primary source is the University of Maryland's Program for Public Consultation, whose deliberative-polling methodology surfaces what citizens actually think when given balanced briefings. Stanford University's Deliberative Democracy Lab, which collaborated with PPC on the 2024 Common Ground of the American People report, lends additional methodological rigor. Supplementary data comes from Pew, KFF, Gallup, More in Common, Harvard CAPS/Harris, and other peer-reviewed sources.

Four tools deliver this information to citizens:

• The Look-Up Tool lets anyone find research results on any of the policies studied.
• The Platform names ten to fifteen policies on which broad bipartisan supermajorities agree — a documented standard, the baseline a representative democracy should reasonably be expected to reflect.
• The Scorecardmeasures how Congress's votes align with the Platform.
• The Gap Analysis diagnoses the distance between what Americans want and what government delivers, annually.

See the full Product Roadmap →

What we are not

Common Ground is not a movement. Not a party. Not advocacy. Not a polling organization. Not a media outlet.

We do not author the underlying research. We do not lobby for specific policies. We do not endorse candidates. We do not accept donations. We do not run advertising. We do not affiliate with any party.

Our discipline is to reveal, not create. The common ground already exists in the data. Our job is to show it — and make it usable.

Why now

Common Ground launches July 4, 2026 — America's 250th anniversary. It is the right civic moment to ask whether we are living up to our founding promise.

The Preamble of the Constitution begins, “We the People.” It charges citizens — by founding mandate — to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty. Two and a half centuries on, the question is not whether the People still have that charge. The question is whether we will see ourselves clearly enough to act on it.

Why you can trust it

Common Ground earns trust structurally, not rhetorically. We are guided by five principles:

• Unbiased. The Platform reflects what Americans actually want, documented by rigorous research — not what any faction or funder wants them to want.
• Transparent. Every decision is documented and published.
• Independent. Our work cannot be purchased. We are self-funded. We do not accept donations from political parties or concentrated sources.
• Accountable. We report publicly on methodology and results.
• Durable. We are built to outlast any founder or individual.

Read the full governance principles →

Who we are

Common Ground was founded by Keith Lietzke. The Board and Advisory Panel are being established as the initiative grows.

Read the founder's message →

What you can do

Common Ground compounds only through sharing. That makes the work answerable to one test: is the idea good enough that you want to spread it?

Share this. Stand to be counted. → Get Involved