Most voters want a party that emphasizes cost of living issues and makes the world a better place. Few Americans think in solidly ideologically terms. "Moderates" are mostly non-ideological.
The idea that moderates are non-ideological and have little to no policy preferences lends credence to the idea that being a "moderate" is mostly vibes-based, not ideological. The throughline of this article is that an emphasis on affordability and cost-of-living will go a longer way in appealing to the majority of voters, rather than moving to the right on issues. The lack of a focus on affordability and COL, and a focus on protecting democratic norms and being anti-Trump, is probably hurting Democrats ATM. The best way to protect democracy is to show that it can deliver for ordinary people.
Adjacent, my current research investigates into the mechanisms that drive candidate moderation and evaluation, a conjoint that randomizes candidate attributes and positions. I find that perceptions of candidate extremity and moderation are strongly affected by distance between candidate and voter on abortion and immigration, with economics and healthcare having a weaker effect. I think that generally agrees with what you find here.
This is literally the best thing you have ever put out. It's also validated by research conducted last year (BEFORE the 2024 General Election). Meaning this isn't some reactionary position by the American people but deeply held desire and suggests the pendulum swinging is a desperate attempt to get literally any party to hear this. Well done, Elliott.
This is a great analysis, and completed in a ridiculously short time (well, you knew where you were looking and you took years to learn all that). It also shows, for us AI skeptics, how these tools can be used by the right person in the right way to complete an analysis that social scientists like me would expect to take months or even years of work. I did not see in your methodology section how you created this weighted random sample, but knowing your obsession with this, I expect that you did this carefully. "It's the economy, stupid"! seems relevant here. Most people don't care a whit about ideology (makes little sense to them) but are focused on "affordability". The ideology part gives policy makers a hint where to find answers to the affordability problem. It also shows why there are almost NO voters in the "moderate" camp. That has been obvious for years, as the same voters have swung between Sanders and Trump.
The local Democratic leadership of my "red" and mostly rural county in Indiana has yet to learn to address the people in the county and their basic concerns. Voter turnout is low, and little effort is made to reach those not party affiliated. Republican ideologues (MAGA) are in the ascendent, but they do not address the real needs of the people who live here. I will see if I can share this analysis with our current Democratic leadership.
How do you control for the prospect that those setting out non ideological views actually have ideological views, but are more timid about getting into the middle of the current national political screaming contest than their cohorts, and thus frame their political desires in non ideological terms? After all, no one is going to turn over your garbage cans if your political view is that you woukd like the price of eggs to be lower. That is a pretty big incentive for may respondents. And polling responses must feel increasing less anonymous in the current environment.
Great work! Thanks for your insightful and honest dive into this feature of our politics that most of us maybe intuitively knew was there but now have more than intuition to go on. And this is just in time, as the inability of an ideologically rigid political system to accommodate the increasingly non-ideological needs of the actual electorate is what drives most of the chaos of this political moment, in one way or another at least.
I particularly like the way you challenge the "foolish consistencies" of current our political hobgoblins without allowing emotion to cloud your challenges, which only leads to the creation of new hobgoblins.
It's not about left, right or the center. It's about whose left behind, what's morally right, and a politics centered on working and middle class folks and not Wall Street.
The rest are just the decaying artifacts of a political order too drunk on its own legacy to see that it has become addicted to its own product.
In other words, a slavish devotion to moderation only breeds the need for extremes.
Thanks for a superb analysis that has really enhanced my thinking and made my day! It's very interesting that the centrists here seem to care deeply about the issues as ends, but they are more agnostic about the means to those ends. Perhaps appropriately, that 38% of people recognize that they don't really know whether giant tax cuts to the rich will supercharge growth and lead to higher wages for all or just redistribute pieces of the existing pie to those who already have more than their share. And how should they know? This is a matter of extensive and complex economic analysis. The "General Wellbeing" group is being appropriately modest. It might be that they don't care about the issues, but it seems more likely that they are not sure how specific policies will add to or subtract from affordability.
And that's an opening for Democrats. Rather than pivoting to more "moderate" positions, these voters can be won by better connecting specific policies to concrete outcomes like affordability.
I'm curious what you would have found if you'd done this (yeoman's) work last summer. Affordability was, we both believe, the main driver of the outcome, but you get poll readings like 50% wanting mass deportations last year, but 35% want them now. I feel like data (the decline of immigration and abortion as key issues, for example) showed people being genuinely more partisan and ideological in the environment of an oppressive election year, and that would be intensified by the drop in popularity of both ideological parties since then (the Dems because Harris lost, the GOP because of Trump's unpopularity). And the population votes in that state, not whatever perspective they have a year after the election.
Notably, the Affordability, Populist, and Left-Leaning groups have 'People' as their central component, in contrast to the right- or moderate-leaning groups.
Absolutely brilliant work, truly advances knowledge and understanding. Elliott, you have done a heroic job here. Many thanks. My one pellet in the punch bowl - nobody can have any of what they say they want unless we get the SuperPACs, dark money, out of politics, overturn Citizens United, restore some version of a Fair Political Practices Act. At present, the US is a captured state, not fit for purpose, at federal and state levels.
Thank you for this analysis! It is always commendable when people post new analyses that contradict some of their previously held stances.
I hope leaders in the Democratic party (honestly both parties) take a good look at this data. The best way to win a majority is to drop the many conflicting ideological priorities that bind the party today and prioritize improving peoples' lives above all else.
Pollsters have gotten so used to looking for "conflicts" and extremes that they ignore their own role in creating them. Excellent job at making the hidden but obvious obvious.
Man I love your 2x2 scatter plot charts which add dimensionality to the partisan monoliths.
Given your conclusion that voters care less about ideology and more about pragmatic legislation that is in our common interests, what are your views on bipartisanship and collaboration without compromising ideological positions? In particular, what is your take on activating non-partisans and independents by utilizing a mechanism like Bridge Grades which sort legislative pragmatists (from both parties) over ideological dogmatists who today engage in zero sum governance?
I now appreciate why you’ve been relatively quiet for the last few days.
Thank you so much for taking on this huge task and giving me the entry point to the more sophisticated side (otherwise known as the future) of data analysis in the realm most important to me.
I know this will inform how I look at and how I talk about all the political polls and analysis.
The idea that moderates are non-ideological and have little to no policy preferences lends credence to the idea that being a "moderate" is mostly vibes-based, not ideological. The throughline of this article is that an emphasis on affordability and cost-of-living will go a longer way in appealing to the majority of voters, rather than moving to the right on issues. The lack of a focus on affordability and COL, and a focus on protecting democratic norms and being anti-Trump, is probably hurting Democrats ATM. The best way to protect democracy is to show that it can deliver for ordinary people.
Adjacent, my current research investigates into the mechanisms that drive candidate moderation and evaluation, a conjoint that randomizes candidate attributes and positions. I find that perceptions of candidate extremity and moderation are strongly affected by distance between candidate and voter on abortion and immigration, with economics and healthcare having a weaker effect. I think that generally agrees with what you find here.
This is literally the best thing you have ever put out. It's also validated by research conducted last year (BEFORE the 2024 General Election). Meaning this isn't some reactionary position by the American people but deeply held desire and suggests the pendulum swinging is a desperate attempt to get literally any party to hear this. Well done, Elliott.
This is a great analysis, and completed in a ridiculously short time (well, you knew where you were looking and you took years to learn all that). It also shows, for us AI skeptics, how these tools can be used by the right person in the right way to complete an analysis that social scientists like me would expect to take months or even years of work. I did not see in your methodology section how you created this weighted random sample, but knowing your obsession with this, I expect that you did this carefully. "It's the economy, stupid"! seems relevant here. Most people don't care a whit about ideology (makes little sense to them) but are focused on "affordability". The ideology part gives policy makers a hint where to find answers to the affordability problem. It also shows why there are almost NO voters in the "moderate" camp. That has been obvious for years, as the same voters have swung between Sanders and Trump.
The local Democratic leadership of my "red" and mostly rural county in Indiana has yet to learn to address the people in the county and their basic concerns. Voter turnout is low, and little effort is made to reach those not party affiliated. Republican ideologues (MAGA) are in the ascendent, but they do not address the real needs of the people who live here. I will see if I can share this analysis with our current Democratic leadership.
How do you control for the prospect that those setting out non ideological views actually have ideological views, but are more timid about getting into the middle of the current national political screaming contest than their cohorts, and thus frame their political desires in non ideological terms? After all, no one is going to turn over your garbage cans if your political view is that you woukd like the price of eggs to be lower. That is a pretty big incentive for may respondents. And polling responses must feel increasing less anonymous in the current environment.
Great work! Thanks for your insightful and honest dive into this feature of our politics that most of us maybe intuitively knew was there but now have more than intuition to go on. And this is just in time, as the inability of an ideologically rigid political system to accommodate the increasingly non-ideological needs of the actual electorate is what drives most of the chaos of this political moment, in one way or another at least.
I particularly like the way you challenge the "foolish consistencies" of current our political hobgoblins without allowing emotion to cloud your challenges, which only leads to the creation of new hobgoblins.
It's not about left, right or the center. It's about whose left behind, what's morally right, and a politics centered on working and middle class folks and not Wall Street.
The rest are just the decaying artifacts of a political order too drunk on its own legacy to see that it has become addicted to its own product.
In other words, a slavish devotion to moderation only breeds the need for extremes.
Worse than trying to force people into an ideological box is attacking people for not being ideological.
A remarkably well done and interesting analysis! Thank you. I subscribed.
Thanks for a superb analysis that has really enhanced my thinking and made my day! It's very interesting that the centrists here seem to care deeply about the issues as ends, but they are more agnostic about the means to those ends. Perhaps appropriately, that 38% of people recognize that they don't really know whether giant tax cuts to the rich will supercharge growth and lead to higher wages for all or just redistribute pieces of the existing pie to those who already have more than their share. And how should they know? This is a matter of extensive and complex economic analysis. The "General Wellbeing" group is being appropriately modest. It might be that they don't care about the issues, but it seems more likely that they are not sure how specific policies will add to or subtract from affordability.
And that's an opening for Democrats. Rather than pivoting to more "moderate" positions, these voters can be won by better connecting specific policies to concrete outcomes like affordability.
I'm curious what you would have found if you'd done this (yeoman's) work last summer. Affordability was, we both believe, the main driver of the outcome, but you get poll readings like 50% wanting mass deportations last year, but 35% want them now. I feel like data (the decline of immigration and abortion as key issues, for example) showed people being genuinely more partisan and ideological in the environment of an oppressive election year, and that would be intensified by the drop in popularity of both ideological parties since then (the Dems because Harris lost, the GOP because of Trump's unpopularity). And the population votes in that state, not whatever perspective they have a year after the election.
Notably, the Affordability, Populist, and Left-Leaning groups have 'People' as their central component, in contrast to the right- or moderate-leaning groups.
Absolutely brilliant work, truly advances knowledge and understanding. Elliott, you have done a heroic job here. Many thanks. My one pellet in the punch bowl - nobody can have any of what they say they want unless we get the SuperPACs, dark money, out of politics, overturn Citizens United, restore some version of a Fair Political Practices Act. At present, the US is a captured state, not fit for purpose, at federal and state levels.
Thank you for this analysis! It is always commendable when people post new analyses that contradict some of their previously held stances.
I hope leaders in the Democratic party (honestly both parties) take a good look at this data. The best way to win a majority is to drop the many conflicting ideological priorities that bind the party today and prioritize improving peoples' lives above all else.
Pollsters have gotten so used to looking for "conflicts" and extremes that they ignore their own role in creating them. Excellent job at making the hidden but obvious obvious.
Man I love your 2x2 scatter plot charts which add dimensionality to the partisan monoliths.
Given your conclusion that voters care less about ideology and more about pragmatic legislation that is in our common interests, what are your views on bipartisanship and collaboration without compromising ideological positions? In particular, what is your take on activating non-partisans and independents by utilizing a mechanism like Bridge Grades which sort legislative pragmatists (from both parties) over ideological dogmatists who today engage in zero sum governance?
I now appreciate why you’ve been relatively quiet for the last few days.
Thank you so much for taking on this huge task and giving me the entry point to the more sophisticated side (otherwise known as the future) of data analysis in the realm most important to me.
I know this will inform how I look at and how I talk about all the political polls and analysis.