Americans Are Conservatives, Not Republicans

If there was ever a time to call yourself a liberal, this should be it. The Republicans made a mess of the last eight years and now find themselves leaderless and seemingly without hope. Supposed titans of capitalism declared that capitalism "fell off the rails." The free market is said to have failed and the era of Reagan was declared over. The Democrats hold the White House, most governor’s mansions, the House of Representatives, and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

But something has gone wrong. Even with the penchant of so many people to jump on any bandwagon they can find, the country is shedding liberals like a bear sheds in the woods.

Conservative America

Now, it should come as no surprise to anyone who has read our prior discussion on how conservative Americans really are that many Americans identify themselves as "conservatives." But what is surprising in the following data (from Gallop), is just how large that group has become:

In all 50 states, more people describe themselves as “conservative” than describe themselves as “liberal.” Only the District of Columbia has more liberals than conservatives.

And this difference is not just a matter of a couple points. The conservative advantage ranges from +1 to +34 percentage points, with conservatives holding a statistically significant lead in 47 of the 50 states, leaving only Hawaii, Vermont and Massachusetts as possibly even. Click on the chart to the left to see the numbers broken down by state.

Or take a look at the following map. This map demonstrates just how dramatic the conservative advantage is. In the darkest green states (“most conservative”), the conservative advantage is 25% points or more. In the medium green states (“more conservative”), the conservative advantage ranges from 20% to 25% points. The conservative advantage in the light green states (“somewhat conservative”) ranges from 10% to 19% points. Finally, the conservative advantage in the pale green states (“less conservative”) ranges from 1% to 9% points.



When you look at the number of electoral votes represented by these groupings, the hurdle a liberal faces is staggering. A party needs 270 electoral votes to win the Presidency.

Below are the number of electoral votes held by each grouping of states:

Most Conservative = 108
More Conservative = 116
Somewhat Conservative = 162
Less Conservative = 149
Liberal = 3

Thus, if we exclude moderates for the moment, the conservative candidate will win a landslide election by an electoral count of 535 to 3. If we exclude the states within the statistical margin of error, the conservative candidate still wins by the electoral count of 516 to 3, with 19 votes undecided.

Even if the country suddenly experiences a 10% shift to the left, the conservative candidate still wins by the electoral count of 386 to 152.

Now let’s factor in the moderates:

• If the conservative can attract half the moderates, the conservative will win 50 states, totaling 535 electoral votes.

• If the conservative attracts only 40% of moderates, the conservative candidate will win 39 states, totaling 376 electoral votes. New Hampshire ends in a tie.

It is not until you fall close to the level of 35% support among the moderates that the conservative candidate loses the election. Thus, all the conservative candidate must do to prevail is to pull in the conservative support plus 40% or more of the moderate voters.

Is such a thing likely? Absolutely. As we’ve noted before, unaffiliated voters tend to hold opinions that are much closer to the Republican position than the Democratic position. On most issues, around 60% of these unaffiliated voters state a preference for the conservative position (click to see our chart). That is fertile ground for a conservative candidate.

In any event, combining this polling data with the prior findings that Americans overwhelmingly continue to express conservative opinions on all major issues -- and that the Democrats are the outliers -- finds that liberals are indeed a rare breed in America. And given all of the advantages liberals should have at the moment, this finding is all the more interesting and all the more damning.

The Republican Problem

However, there is a big caveat to this data. If the Republicans are unable to attract these conservatives, then their electoral success in 2010 or 2012 is far from assured.

The reason this becomes an issue is that Republican affiliation trails conservative identification by wide margins. In other words, more people describe themselves as conservative than Republican. Indeed, Republicans only hold a registration advantage over Democrats in six states, as compared to the forty-three states where the Democrats hold the advantage (twenty-nine of which are sizable). Compare that to the advantage conservatives hold in all 50 states. (Click on the chart to the left to see the comparison broken down by state.)

The Democratic advantage is clear in the chart below. The red states are those where Republicans hold the advantage (dark red = 10 point or greater advantage; bright red = 5-9 point advantage), the grey states are about even, and the blue states are those where the Democrats hold the advantage (dark blue = 10 point or greater advantage; bright blue = 5-9 point advantage).



Compare the Republican misery in this chart against the conservative sweep in the green map above. Unlike the conservative who wins by 500+ electoral votes, the Republican loses to the Democrat 24 to 259, with 75 votes remaining undecided.

So what does this mean? It means that liberalism has not caught on with the public. It means that Americans remain a deeply conservative people. It also means that Republicans have done a poor job of attracting self-described conservatives. Maybe they should ask themselves why that is?