… and how many are in it with you?
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In a prior post, we summarized Pew’s nine American “typographical political groups” and asked: Which group are you in?”
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- Progressive Left
- Establishment Liberals
- Democratic Mainstays
- Outsider Left
- Stressed Sideliners
- Ambivalent Right:
- Populist Right
- Committed Conservatives
- Faith and Flag Conservatives
You could have slotted yourself by reading summaries of the groups or, better yet, by answering Pew’s short values-based quiz and letting Pew slot you.
If you haven’t already done so, here’s the link to the group summaries and the online slotting quiz.
OK, now that you’ve done that, let’s look at he numbers…
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General Public
Here’s how Pew sizes the groups for the general population…
Interpreting the Pew numbers:
> About 37% of the country have somewhat mixed or balanced political views … those in the middle 3 groups
That’s a sizable group, but short of majority moderate middle.
> The most extreme groupings (top 2 and bottom 2 on the list) are sizable and statistically significant at 17% and 19% respectively).
These groups tend to “punch above their weight” in on the political scene.
> Pew’s classification scheme suggests a Democratic skew.
But, that may just be a reflection of the methodology.
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Party Affiliation
Here’s how the numbers break out by party affiliation…
> Most “Stressed Sideliners” — who are then most mixed and balanced in their values — do not identify with a party, and those who do are roughly equally split between those who lean to the Democratic Party (26% of all Stressed Sideliners) and those who lean Republican (22% of all Stressed Sideliners)
> Only 8% of Democrats belong to a GOP-oriented typology group … and only 6% of Republicans and Republican leaners belong to a Democratic-oriented typology group.
> Just over 1/3rd of each party’s members and leaners are in their more extreme values groupings (35% of Dems; 38% of GOPs)
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The Urban Divide
The Pew Report cuts the data in a variety of ways.
One analysis that caught my eye was the urban – suburban – rural divide.
Pew asked respondents whether of not they “ prefer to live in a place with larger houses farther from schools, stores and restaurants” … and categorized them by their degree of ruralness.
No surprise,these variables are highly correlated.
As to be expected, urbanites tend to cluster toward Democratic-oriented values (think: population diversity, collective interests and reliance/dependency on gov’t services e.g. public transportation) … rural folks cluster towards GOP-oriented values (think: independence, family-focus, trucks) … suburbanites fall between the urban-rural divide (think: nuclear families, cars & SUVs, mix of public & private schools)
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Pew’s conclusion
Based on its data and analysis, Pew drew this overall conclusion:
Partisan polarization remains the dominant, seemingly unalterable condition of American politics.
Republicans and Democrats agree on very little — and when they do, they most often share the belief that they have little in common.
So much for the moderate middle, right?
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Here’s a link to the full Pew Report … it’s worth reading!
The Homa Files 