Not so long ago, political discussions were sensitive but respectful, and often predictable. Once you established if you were talking to a Democrat or Republican, you had a pretty good hunch of where that person stood on a variety of issues.
Things are no longer so simple. Today’s political discourse is complicated, and an individual's alignment with a traditional party isn't easy to pin down. Political identity is loaded with adjectives—West Coast liberal, ultra-conservative, Christian right—and littered with assumptions. It paints a picture of a polarized America where people are impossibly divided on issues that are vital to our society.
The fact is, we might be less polarized than it seems. While political parties have become increasingly focused on division, people are rejecting the idea of aligning with a specific political label. Instead, they are more likely to take a stand on issues that support their values, and are describing their political affiliations in more granular terms. In some ways, Americans might be thinking more independently than ever before.
We conducted a study and asked 3,979 US adults questions about political ideology, testing a variety of answer options. We also took a deeper dive into the responses by generation—GenZ, Millennials, GenX, and Boomers. Here’s a few insights into our findings.
Party identity: is it obsolete?
When it comes to traditional party identification, Democrat and Republican labels don't quite fit today’s world. As political parties have aligned more closely with value-based issues, we explored the idea that a more nuanced way of asking about political identity might give more accurate answers.
We looked at alternate terms for defining political identity—left vs. right, conservative vs. liberal, and conservative vs. progressive—and how those terms predicted things like opinions on issues, voting tendencies, and partisanship. We used a 7-point scale for all the terms in addition to testing a 5-point scale for liberal vs. conservative. Here’s a sample of what the question looked like:
We found interesting comparisons and response levels for each term, suggesting that the way we ask and the answers we offer can have a big impact on people’s responses to political identity, partisanship, issues, and more.
How generations align with political ideology terms
Some overall findings are that many Americans identify as ideologically moderate (47%), leaning only slightly to the left or right. Men tend to lean to the ideological right over the left (54% versus 29%), while women typically lean in the opposite direction (31% versus 35%).
We also uncovered some other interesting insights in terms of how people responded to these categories of political identity by generation.
Using the traditional party identity (Republican/Democrat) as a baseline, we compared the shifts in alignment with other answer options. One key takeaway: the majority of younger generations (GenZ and Millennials) are not inclined to to align with a political party, with over half choosing “neither” over “Democrat” or “Republican.”
Here are our findings from other political identity answer options by generation.
A few surprises:
- Millennials are almost evenly divided between the terms “Democrat/Republican” and “conservative/progressive” or “conservative/liberal”
- However, when the terms “right” and “left” are an option, a large portion of Millennials swung to the more conservative option, choosing “right” over “left”
- GenZ leans left when choosing between “Democrat/Republican” or “conservative/liberal” and is even when choosing between “right/left”
- However, when “conservative” and “progressive” are the options, a large portion of GenZ swung left, choosing “progressive” over “conservative”
- The opposite is true for GenX, who swung more conservative when “progressive” was the other answer option
- Boomers were 2X more likely to choose a political identity vs. “neither” than other generations
- Boomers lean more conservative when “liberal” or “progressive” are the other answer options, and more left leaning when “Democrat” or “left” are the answer options
Issue opinions and political ideology
Political identity can uncover how people feel about social issues and vice versa, however making generalizations can be iffy. When we compared generational data with traditional political identification, we found that people were much more polarized in the political ideology cuts, and less so in the generational cuts. Here’s a snapshot of public sentiment on key issues by traditional political ID and generation.
Environment
People are pretty much in agreement about spending and the environment, with close to half of all generations saying we should spend more and about a quarter saying we should spend the same. GenZ was the most in support of spending on environmental issues, with only 17% saying we should spend less. When looking at the same issue by party, Democrats are far more interested in spending to protect the environment then Republicans, showing a huge gap in opinion by party.
Group equality
The stats around spending to promote equality showed some real differences when we compared traditional political identity with generations. The cuts by generation show that most people believe the government should try to equalize conditions across groups, especially GenZ. When looking at this same issue by party, the numbers closely aligned with traditional Democratic and Republican values, with more Republicans leaning towards less government support.
Abortion
We thought abortion might be amongst the most polarizing issues for people. However, the breakdown was surprisingly consistent across generations, with about two-thirds of respondents saying it should be legal, and about a third saying it should be illegal. Party lines showed much more polarization, with Democrats aligning with legalization, and Republicans being somewhat split.
Our findings point to the theory that Americans might be more alike than different, especially when it comes to social issues. There will always be differences in opinion, but it seems that political ideology might amplify those differences.
How you ask (and why you ask) about political ideology are important parts of any study. Stay tuned for more findings on our study about political identity and how people identify with different labels.
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This SurveyMonkey study was conducted between July 17-19, 2024, amongst 3,979 U.S. adults 18+, with data weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography to reflect the demographic composition of the United States. Respondents were selected from an online non-probability panel.
