Survey: Many people talk politics only with like-minded friends

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds nearly half of all Hillary Clinton supporters said they do not know of any friends who support Donald Trump and 31 percent of Trump supporters said the same about Clinton backers.

The findings were further backed up by the high percentage of people supporting either candidate who said they do not talk about the increasingly contentious election with people who don't share their views.

Pew found 76 percent of Trump supporters said they have recently had a conversation about the election, but only 37 percent said that conversation was with a Clinton supporter. The numbers for Clinton supporters were similar: 72 percent reported talking about the election with someone, but only 40 percent said they did so with a Trump supporter.

While supporters of the two candidates may be self-selecting their conversational partners, an overwhelming majority of voters, 67 percent, said the election comes up in conversation at least somewhat often -- although the percentage who say it comes up very often falls off to just 23 percent.

The survey was conducted June 7-July 5 among 4,602 adults, including 3,834 registered voters. It carries a margin of error of 2.3 percentage points.