“In 2018, for the first time, a majority of Democrats said they considered themselves to be “liberal,” according to Gallup. At 51 percent, the 2018 share is only 1 point greater than the share of Democrats who identified as liberal in 2017, but it’s very different from how Democrats’ political ideologies broke down in the 1990s and early 2000s.” — Janie Velencia, FiveThirtyEight
The same poll revealed that among all Americans, not just Democrats, 26% identified as liberal. (That’s the chart on the left in the image above.) The same poll revealed that 35% of Americans identified as conservative and 35% embraced the moderate label, which is why the U.S. is often referred to as ‘center-right.’
Meanwhile, James Stimson, a political scientist who has been measuring the public policy preferences of Americans since 1952, has found that Americans are more liberal than at any time in the 68 years since he has been doing the survey. (That’s the chart on the right.) The 2018 result: support among Americans for government action — that is, for liberal public policies — stands at 69%.
That’s quite a difference. Why? Because the first survey asks Americans to self-identify; in other words, to choose the label that best describes their political ideology.
The second survey, on the other hand, doesn’t ask Americans to label themselves; instead it asks their opinions on a range of issues (background checks for gun purchases [which weighs in with 89% support], Medicare for all who want it [70%], government regulation of prescription drug prices [67%], a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the U.S. illegally [64%], and so on). The Public Policy Mood survey crunches the numbers to get a result based on actual policy preferences of Americans.
That 69% is just a shade above the previous high, recorded in 1962, in an era when faith in government to right wrongs and to offer protection to Americans (with the passage of Medicare, Medicaid, civil rights and voting rights legislation, and so on).
In other words, as the authors of Asymmetric Politics noted, Americans are ideologically conservative (they think of themselves as conservative) and operationally liberal (they endorse the liberal policies that benefit them and their neighbors). So, Democrats campaign on specific issues: healthcare coverage for preexisting conditions, lowering prescription drug prices, offering a public option …; while Republicans campaign on ideology: linking Democrats with the Democratic Socialists of America and labeling them as “far to the left” and of course as “socialists.”
Yesterday, Gregory Koger highlighted the Public Policy Mood results to explain several strategic choices that Democrats and Republicans have made as we head into the 2020 elections, including the decision by Republicans to hit hard on socialism (“an extreme ideological label”), even though that didn’t work for them in 2018.
(Image composed of two charts: left, from FiveThirtyEight, and right, from Mischiefs of Faction.)