Conservatives Outnumber Liberals More Than Two To One (POLL)

Conservatives maintained and built on their numerical advantage over liberals in the first half of 2010, a new Gallup poll finds.

According to the poll, 42 percent of respondents described themselves as either very conservative or conservative, up from 40 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, only 20 percent called themselves either very liberal or liberal, down from 21 percent last year. 35 percent of respondents described themselves as moderate, down from 36 percent in 2009.

The latest figures mark a continuing rise of conservatism over the past two years. In a similar 2008 poll, only 37 percent of respondents defined themselves as conservative, the bottom of a four year decline that begin in 2004.

Gallup reports that if the conservative identities figures hold steady or grow in the second half of 2010, "it would represent the highest annual percentage identifying as conservative in Gallup's history of measuring ideology with this wording, dating to 1992."

The polls results are based on the combined findings of eight separate Gallup and USA Today/Gallup surveys conducted in the first half of 2010. The margin of error is 2 percent.

Comments

[wigginnutz]

08:52 PM on 07/09/2010

Obama supporters only wanted a President they could consider their intellectual equal.
The Tea Party already had one.

[dsws]

05:43 PM on 07/01/2010

The scared-to-be-called-liberal mainstream media has been complicit in turning "liberal" into a content-free cuss-word. There are a lot of people who won't describe themselves as "liberal" but will take a mostly-liberal set of positions on the issues.

[aDelphinium]

06:27 AM on 07/12/2010

Well-said.

Fanned.

[Debra Lane]

09:12 AM on 06/28/2010

the only people who answer polls are people with land lines and that is mostly older people. Its the people under 50 who are most liberal or progressive so we are not polled. Those types of polls are worthless.

[dsws]

06:02 PM on 07/01/2010

"Each sample includes a minimum quota of 150 cell phone-only respondents .
Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, education, region, and phone lines. Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2009 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in continental U.S. telephone households."
http://www.gallup.com/poll/141032/2010-Conservatives-Outnumber-Moderates-Liberals.aspx

Polls conducted with the same methodology are more or less comparable. Statistically significant changes in poll results can be assumed to reflect some sort of change in the population being polled, but it can be practically impossible to figure out what.

[catgirl666]

03:52 AM on 06/28/2010

Huffpo why all the screening. It is all right that you have various stories about body parts, but when someone wants to post a response you have be our mommy's and daddy's.

FREE SPEECH IS ALIVE AND WELL, JUST NOT ON HUFFPO

[Philclock]

09:48 PM on 06/27/2010

Not so strange what having Big Government stick its hands in people's pockets and stare them in the face against their wishes does.

[James Michael Gregg]

07:33 PM on 06/27/2010

It should be illegal to be conservative. Conservatism has caused almost all the problems our country and world have been dealing with over the last two decades. Due to their bias toward corporate welfare and right-wing corruption/propaganda.

[Philclock]

09:49 PM on 06/27/2010

And "progressive" bias to big Government ripping us off when we say no.

[dsws]

05:44 PM on 07/01/2010

No ideological identification should be illegal, no matter how evil.

[James Michael Gregg]

01:03 AM on 07/02/2010

Ideology is inherently evil and thus should at least be frowned on and discouraged by society. People should think for themselves without ideology.

[madrediterra]

04:49 PM on 06/27/2010

Well in girth maybe.

[Bitzer McGee]

04:29 PM on 06/27/2010

Democrats have won the popular vote in 4 of the last 5 elections.

Enough said.

[feliznavidad]

07:35 PM on 06/27/2010

If only we had won the elections!

[Philclock]

09:49 PM on 06/27/2010

See you at the polls in November.

[aries1309]

04:19 PM on 06/27/2010

Of course, what this poll does not tell you is that the common perceptions of those two words are vastly different. In this country, conservative is not a dirty word, it is merely a description. You don't hear folks saying, "Yeah well, you're just a lousy conservative!" The same cannot be said of the word liberal. Since the 1980s, Republicans have orchestrated an enormously successful campaign to alter the discourse of this country and turn the word liberal into a derogatory term packed with negative associations. Thus, across the political spectrum, it is viewed with distaste, often erroneously. So, it is not surprising that a lot of people fear to claim the title for themselves, or they have false assumptions about what it means and therefore fail to recognize that the term actually DOES describe them. In short, by using those two particular terms, the poll guarantees that this country will come off WAY more conservative than it actually is.

Progressive (although it is also being subjugated to the right's incessant smear campaigns) is a far less problematic term, and I suspect that the results would have been far different if it had been substituted for liberal. Many of those "moderates" might have changed their tunes. I think we need to start changing the words that frame this kind of debate.

Of course, we could always stop letting the Republicans frame the terms of the debate in the first place and reclaim the word liberal once more ...

[Philclock]

09:53 PM on 06/27/2010

"Progressives" have chosen their own path, and aligned themselves and their grandiose schemes with raw power and government interests.

People want effective government services, not government telling them how to run their lives.

Very simple.

[aries1309]

10:21 PM on 06/27/2010

Your characterization is a bit simplistic, but that is beside the point.. My point wasn't to say that "progressives" are better than "liberals," it was merely to demonstrate that the perceptions of those two words are different, and therefore, would have produced different results in the poll.

[dsws]

05:51 PM on 07/01/2010

I'm a liberal, not a progressive.

Progressivism is the belief in moral progress at the level of the whole society, with government having a significant role to play in it. Liberalism is the belief in a particular understanding of liberty, that leaves government out of a substantial range of moral issues.

[aDelphinium]

06:30 AM on 07/12/2010

I know a lot of people who describe themselves as progressives, but who have not taken it from the above definition.

[Blue in South Jersey]

03:59 PM on 06/27/2010

More Conservatives than Liberals? No wonder I'm 41 and solidly single. My grandmother must be looking out for me somewhere. She wouldn't want to see me have to agree with a Dittohead.

[Philclock]

01:17 AM on 06/28/2010

I'm a dittohead.

What's your problem agreeing with me? I'm slugging it out, earning a living and supporting a middle schooler, just like non-dittoheads.

[keepemhonest]

03:54 PM on 06/27/2010

Hmmm .... we've been told via polls since January that incumbents were going to lose yet ... the ACTUAL VOTING in primary elections have shown OPPOSITE of what the polls kept telling us.

Factually, if you look at Primary VOTES (as oppose to phone polls) the Primaries are showing much more ideological change in the GOP than among Democrats ... for it is the GOP incumbents losing Teabagger votes.

So far, the GOP Primaries have given us extremely far-frightwingers ... I wonder how many moderate Dems & moderate Independents will vote for the far-frighters the GOP Primaries have elected?

Just thought I'd pass that FACT along.

[thegreyarea]

03:30 PM on 06/27/2010

I've gotta wonder how much this is due to the GOP and its media allies turning "liberal" into a slur. If you've ever listened to the venom with which conservative pundits spit out the words "liberal" and "progressive", you should immediately know what I'm talking about here. The word "conservative" does not carry the same negative connotations that many people associate with the word "liberal", probably because liberal candidates are far less prone to demonizing opponents.

[Cthulhu On Call]

03:37 PM on 06/27/2010

I agree. Ask the same people taking this poll what being "conservative" or "liberal" means and I think you'll get some interesting responses. It'd probably be like watching a "Jay walking" segment.

[keepemhonest]

04:02 PM on 06/27/2010

Funny thing, I consider myself "conservative" and I am ... but ... I would not vote for a single GOP on the federal level because they are nothing but extreme frightwingers who have shown for decades that they h8 the American working man & women.

[Philclock]

01:22 AM on 06/28/2010

I agree in that the terms don't define the TRUE battle: those who want Better Living through Bigger Government, and those who don't.

Insofar as conservatives are part of the "don'ts", they conflict with the clearly Big Government positions of today's "liberals" and "progressives", one and the same to me. But conservatives can sell out to Big Government, too, as Bushie did with Chappaquiddick Ted in his No Child Left Behind and Prescription Drug entitlements; and developing government guaranteed rights for yet another minority, that of the fetus.

[bergermb]

12:44 PM on 07/25/2010

Do you admit that bad things are done to individuals and society by "big business" and "big oil" and "big banks" and so on? If so, what recourse do individuals have against such depredations? Does "big government" have a role in protecting the average person from the injuries wrought by the ethically-challenged actions of the other big actors?

[jerzygurl]

03:03 PM on 06/27/2010

After they lose both Houses this fall, I wonder how long it will take the Democrats to become a viable national party again? Four years? Eight years?...No rush.

[Cthulhu On Call]

03:29 PM on 06/27/2010

Both houses huh? Exactly what are you basing that on? I've been following the polling information on the Senate and House races and I think you are in for a disappointment. I think both houses will be still majority Democrat when it's all over. The gap should close from what I'm seeing, but I don't see how you will end up with 51 or more Republicans in the Senate.

45 of the Democrats seats aren't in play and 5 of them are either leaning Democrat or strongly democrat. That means they just need to win one of the 8 "tossups" in order to maintain a majority.

Try doing a little research before spouting off, it'll save you from looking silly.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/senate/2010_elections_senate_map.html

[SoccerNana]

03:30 PM on 06/27/2010

You and the rest of your teabagging groupies will see come November.

[redcelt]

02:56 PM on 06/27/2010

Why don't they poll the percentage who are rational rather than this ideological nonsense?

[Dog Whistle Translator]

02:54 PM on 06/27/2010

Awww, an unscientific push poll to make the cave people feel better.You smell it? I do. Its the smell of their own extinction.
black man in the WH, woman Speaker,
Health care is back in our favor
Generic ballot back in our favor
Their true allegiance is revealed by Joe Barton
Rush is gay
and...and...Miss USA is an Arab Muslim heheheh

What are they gonna do when we have a Snoop Dog concert on the WH lawn?

[Cthulhu On Call]

03:15 PM on 06/27/2010

Maybe the problem is that people who call themselves conservatives don't really understand what that means. I'm finding it hard to compare that results of that poll to reality as well.