While we all sit around pondering the political universe while we’re waiting for Pennsylvania and Georgia and Nevada to announce final results, I would like to post a chart that I’ve posted many times before. It’s from Gallup, and it shows how many people consider themselves liberal vs. conservative:
The good news is that liberals have been making progress over the past few decades. The bad news is that we’re still a small minority. Only about a quarter of the country considers itself liberal, way behind the number who consider themselves conservative. Like it or not, this is the playing field. Here’s a breakdown by demographic group:
There is literally only one demographic group which is more than one-third liberal: people with postgraduate degrees. Every single other group—whether broken down by gender, age, income, race, or region—is well under a third liberal. Even among the youngest voters, only 30 percent consider themselves liberal.
I always hear a bunch of wishful thinking when I post this stuff, but none of it holds water. America is not yet a country that considers itself liberal, or even close to it. This is the underlying foundation of everything. Whatever your strategy for winning more elections, this is where you start from.
