Study Finds Americans Are Divided into 9 Political Groups. Which Are You In? — Amanpour and Company

[0:00] As we discussed earlier, the crucial U.S. midterm elections are coming up. [0:04] At a time when the partisan divide feels more stark than ever, [0:08] Americans will likely face one of two choices, Democrats or Republicans. [0:12] But do most voters feel their political and cultural identities align them with either major party? [0:18] A new Pew Research Center report says no. [0:21] Jocelyn Kiley is the director of the research at the organization, [0:24] and she tells Hari Sreenivasan about how the picture of American politics is far more nuanced. [0:31] Biana, thanks. Jocelyn Kiley, thanks so much for joining us. [0:34] We keep hearing this idea that people in the United States are divided, [0:40] and most often we think of red or blue, Republican or Democrat. [0:45] And what you've created is this typology in a new report called Beyond Red vs. Blue, [0:51] where you write that many Americans hold a complex mix of values and beliefs [0:56] that don't always fit neatly into either major party. [1:00] The result is a picture of American politics with far more than two colors in it. [1:05] What did you find? [1:07] So this is our Pew Research Center of Political Typology. [1:11] It's a project that's near and dear to my heart that we've done for many years back. [1:15] The first one was done in 1987. [1:17] And the aim of it has always been to give Americans a sense of the contours of the American political landscape [1:26] and to look beyond red versus blue. [1:30] We talk a lot about Republicans and Democrats, but as you say, [1:34] within those coalitions, there's a lot of diversity and nuance, [1:38] and there are a lot of people who have overlapping views. [1:41] So, for instance, we find nine political groups in this year's political typology. [1:48] I think you can fairly say that four of them, two on the left, two on the right, [1:53] are deeply partisan, deeply ideological, at least in broad strokes. [1:59] But then we have five other groups. [2:02] One is fairly politically disengaged, a group we call the tuned-out middle. [2:07] But then four other groups that are more mixed in their political values, [2:12] even as they generally align to one party or the other. [2:16] So I'll give you one example. [2:18] Actually, the biggest group in this year's political typologies group we call the Order and Opportunity Left. [2:23] This is a group that is more Democratic than Republican by actually a fairly wide margin, [2:28] but still has about a quarter of people who identify as Republicans and Republican leaners as a part of that group. [2:35] It's a group that's economically liberal, fairly financially stressed, racially and ethnically diverse. [2:42] But on some issues of social issues, issues around immigration, I think you'd characterize their views as more moderate. [2:50] And so even though they're on balance more in the Democratic coalition than the Republican coalition by a fairly wide margin, [2:58] they have some values that pull them to the middle or even in some cases a little bit towards the Republican Party. [3:05] You asked, what, more than 10,000 adults these questions, 30 different questions. [3:10] And you're not necessarily asking about, well, did you vote Democrat all the time? [3:14] You're asking really questions about values. [3:17] That's right. [3:17] So the aim of this project is to sort of show Americans how their values array. [3:23] And so you're absolutely right. [3:24] We do on the survey, we ask questions about their partisanship and who they voted for. [3:30] But in order to create these typology groups, instead, we ask questions about their views on immigration, [3:36] their views on race and ethnicity, their views on the role of government in the social safety net, [3:41] government regulation, any number of other issues that when we talk about our politics today, [3:47] these are the issues underlying those partisan coalitions. [3:53] And so then we use the answers to those questions to find people, to find groups in the public. [4:00] And then we analyze those groups. [4:03] You didn't put this on a spectrum. [4:04] It wasn't a single line where you could say that the extremes by both sides. [4:08] I mean, as you start looking at the sort of values question, it really ends up twisting [4:13] and kind of turning into a, I don't know, some sort of a 3D shape where you can have political [4:18] values that might actually diverge from your spot on the spectrum, so to speak. [4:24] Yeah, that's exactly right. [4:26] We often, including in a lot of my other work, we talk about the political spectrum from liberal [4:31] to conservative. [4:33] And that is real and that is important. [4:35] But it's also important to illustrate, I think, what we see in the public, which is [4:41] that there are a lot of people who hold a mix of values that are maybe conservative on one [4:46] question and liberal on another, but then somebody else who is conservative on the question that [4:51] other person is liberal and liberal on the question that other person is conservative about. [4:55] So one of the things that we're trying to do with this project is to show the ways that [5:03] our politics are consistent in this ideological way, but also the ways that there are, you [5:09] know, sometimes places where the crossover isn't necessarily clearly aligned with ideology. [5:16] Okay, let's go through this box a little by little here. [5:18] So on the extremes, tell me what do these groups have in common? [5:25] You've called them, you know, highly ideological, politically engaged, whether it's on the right [5:30] or the left, what do they have in common? [5:32] And then maybe what actually breaks them apart into pulling them into these separate boxes? [5:37] Yeah, and they do have a lot in common. [5:39] So I'll start with the left. [5:40] We have a group we call the leftward progressives. [5:43] That's 7% of the American public. [5:46] We also have a group we call the loyal liberals. [5:48] That's 11% of the American public. [5:50] They are the groups on the Democratic side who are most likely to vote. [5:56] Their voices are fairly loud in our politics. [5:59] And they, you know, in broad strife, you can say that both of these groups are deeply liberal. [6:04] It's absolutely the case. [6:06] And yet there are important differences. [6:09] And I think one of the most interesting things is that the leftward progressives, even though [6:14] they are progressive across the board, they have really strong critiques of the American [6:20] economic system, they also have some skepticism about the role America has played in foreign [6:27] policy. [6:29] And very interestingly, despite how left they are, they have some criticisms of the Democratic [6:36] Party. [6:36] They're, you know, they still overwhelmingly voted for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump. [6:43] They have, they are deeply critical of Donald Trump and the Republican Party, but that doesn't [6:47] necessarily mean that they're happy with the, with the Democratic Party. [6:50] On the other hand, loyal liberals are also on many of these same issues in a similar place [6:57] where they differ is that they are, first of all, they're a little older and they are also [7:04] more attached to the Democratic Party. [7:06] They have a more positive view of America's role in the world. [7:11] And they think, and they think that America has an important role to play in the world. [7:16] They're, they're strong supporters, for instance, of NATO. [7:19] That's not to say the leftward progressives dislike NATO, but not to the degree that the [7:23] loyal liberals do. [7:25] On the right, you know, their kind of corollary groups are the group I call the No Apologies [7:31] Right and the group we call the Faith First Conservatives. [7:34] No Apologies Right are about 9% of the public and Faith First Conservatives are about 12% [7:40] of the public. [7:41] Again, both of these groups are, are deeply Republican. [7:44] They strongly supported Donald Trump in 2024 and largely continue to be strong supporters [7:49] of Trump today. [7:51] No Apologies Right, perhaps the strongest supporters of Donald Trump. [7:56] They are both conservative across the board for the most part. [8:00] They're No Apologies Right. [8:01] Part of why we call them that is they have, you know, a somewhat maximalist approach to [8:05] politics. [8:06] They're not looking for compromise with the other side in our politics. [8:11] And, and they're, they're motivated as much by that as by some, some of their political [8:17] opinions. [8:18] Faith First Conservatives, again, are strong supporters of the president. [8:22] They're very, very likely to consider themselves supporters of the Make America Great movement. [8:28] So I don't mean to separate them out by that. [8:30] One of the interesting differences here is that Faith First Conservatives are particularly [8:35] motivated by issues around morality and, and religion. [8:38] And so, for instance, while both groups tend to say that abortion should be illegal in all [8:45] their most circumstances, Faith First Conservatives are actually the most likely group to say that. [8:50] Though one way to think about it is these groups are sitting very comfortably in coalition [8:54] with each other, but there are just are some, some differences in what motivates them [8:59] and, and why. [9:00] When I hear you talk about the groups on the extremes and the issues that they care about, [9:06] and also the numbers in America of how many percentage of people kind of fit into these [9:11] groups, you're talking about the two extremes on either side that comprise 20% on either side. [9:18] But that seems to be all where the noise is coming from. [9:22] They seem to have a disproportionate impact on the national conversation, the debate, even policy. [9:27] I think there are, we see reasons for that in, in our data. [9:32] This is not new to this political moment, but it's often been the case that groups, groups, [9:38] people who are more ideologically consistent, more ideologically motivated are, participate [9:45] at much higher levels in, in politics. [9:47] So we see that in, you know, in our data, we're able to look at who voted in 2024. [9:53] So we can see that, that those groups that I was just talking about are the groups that [9:57] are most likely to have turned out in, in the 2024 election. [10:00] They're also more likely than other groups to say that what will happen in this midterm [10:05] really matters, uh, for them. [10:08] And, and we see it pop up in any other way that you can imagine, uh, measuring political [10:14] engagement, how closely they follow news and information, uh, whether they go to rallies, [10:19] uh, and, and whether they, they give money and so on and so forth. [10:24] So, so to some extent that, that explains a little bit that they have a, a larger voice [10:30] in, in our politics. [10:31] Let's talk a little bit about the big giant hunk of the five groups that you have in the [10:36] middle. [10:36] You have one group that's, as you kind of say, has checked out and, uh, but what about [10:41] those four that are, I guess, who everyone is competing for to try to get them to get [10:47] out to the polls and obviously pull the lever in the direction of the party? [10:51] Yeah. [10:51] Uh, and even within there, there's some nuance. [10:54] So I'll start with, for instance, the, the group we call the unconventional right, which [10:59] is a overwhelmingly Republican oriented group. [11:02] Uh, it's, it's younger than some of the other groups on the right. [11:06] They are conservative across many issues, uh, but not as deeply conservative as those groups [11:14] I was mentioning before. [11:15] And on some issues for including some cultural issues, particularly things like a book, [11:21] abortion and guns, I would characterize their views as more moderate than the positions [11:26] that the, um, that the no apologies, right. [11:28] And faith first conservatives take, they're an interesting group because they turn out at [11:34] much lower rates. [11:35] If you think about competing for their votes, targeting that group, it's, it's fairly unlikely. [11:42] I would say that this is a group that would be easily swayed to come over to the democratic [11:46] side. [11:48] But, um, the question is a turnout question. [11:51] Um, can the, you know, can the Republic, if you're a Republican strategist, how do you [11:55] get this group to turn out and not stay home? [11:58] And I think one of the interesting things about that group is, you know, as I say, they [12:03] overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in 2024. [12:06] But, uh, on the, the last measure we have of his presidential approval among this group [12:12] from a couple of months ago, uh, that approval had fallen to just over 50% among this group. [12:18] So there is, it's definitely, and that, that decline is larger than among any other group [12:23] in our political typology. [12:24] And there's a corollary group on the left that we call the left out left. [12:28] They're economically liberal. [12:30] They, when they vote, they vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. [12:34] They're fairly young. [12:35] They're very, um, disaffected with our politics today. [12:40] They're, and they're, they're very economically stressed. [12:42] Um, and so the challenge there is for Democrats to get that group excited to turn out for, for [12:48] them because like the unconventional right, it's, it's fairly unlikely that that, that Republicans [12:54] are going to be able to target people in that group. [12:56] And then one of the other groups, um, that I haven't talked to it yet is a group we call [13:01] the polite and the pragmatic and polite, right? [13:04] It's 11% of the public. [13:07] Uh, it's actually the oldest group in the, in the typology. [13:11] It is majority Republican, but not overwhelmingly. [13:15] It's about 56% Republican on balance. [13:18] It voted for Donald, this group voted for Donald Trump over Harris in 2024. [13:23] Uh, but this group, um, has really soured on the president, uh, over, over the course of [13:29] the year, uh, the, the last couple of years. [13:32] And some of that is this group, the pragmatic and polite, right. [13:35] Is a group that is, uh, that is in favor of small government is generally economically [13:42] conservative, uh, but their views on some other issues are quite moderate. [13:47] Um, they're, they're not necessarily liberal, but they're moderate. [13:50] What demographic patterns did you notice in the typologies, age, ethnicity? [13:56] Sure. [13:57] So younger Americans are more likely to be democratic, democratic leaning than older Americans. [14:03] That's, that's a pattern we've seen for the last 20 years or so and continues to hold up. [14:09] And so that shows up in our, our political typology as well in the, you know, the groups [14:14] on younger Americans are more likely to be found in the groups on the left, um, than older [14:18] Americans and older Americans are more likely to be found in the groups on their right. [14:22] That said, you know, there are even there, there are some interesting dynamics. [14:26] Younger Americans are in particular likely to be found in the left work for aggressives. [14:32] Um, and the left out left groups, both of those groups for different reasons, they are [14:38] democratic leaning, but they have, um, critiques of the democratic party. [14:42] So there's a disaffection we're seeing among younger Americans around race and ethnicity, [14:48] you know, again, broadly, uh, black, Hispanic, uh, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Asian Americans [14:55] are more likely to be found, uh, in the groups on the left, uh, compared to, to white Americans [15:00] and white Americans are more likely to be found in the groups on the right. [15:04] But even against that, one of the things that's interesting is that white Americans are, are [15:10] overrepresented, one might say in the left were progressive and loyal liberal groups and [15:15] black and Hispanic Americans in particular are fairly highly concentrated in the order [15:21] and opportunity left and the left out left. [15:23] And those are both groups that are very democratic leaning, uh, but have a, a mix of, of views that [15:31] are, you know, somewhat liberal, in fact, quite liberal, especially on economics, but, but [15:35] more moderate on some social and cultural issues, uh, issues around gender identity and, and to [15:42] some extent around immigration, uh, those, those groups are tend to be, uh, more black and Hispanic [15:48] as well. [15:50] Let's take an example to try to show where values might move you around in different spots, [15:57] right? [15:58] Immigration, hot button issue, depending on your demographic, depending on which [16:01] of these nine groups. [16:02] I mean, I don't see it as an automatic that, oh, this is going to, if it's immigration, [16:08] you're automatically here. [16:09] That's right. [16:10] I think one of the things about immigration for the most part, it does fall out on an ideological [16:16] spectrum with the most conservative groups, the most supportive of restrictive immigration [16:20] policies than the most liberal groups, the, the least supportive of these. [16:24] But one of the interesting things is that it depends on which questions you ask about immigration. [16:29] So for instance, uh, we, we ask about what, you know, whether those in the country illegally [16:35] should be deported or there should be a path to legal, there should be a path to legal status. [16:41] And on this question, we find the no apologies, right? [16:44] And the faith for first conservatives overwhelmingly, uh, in support of large scale deportation efforts, [16:51] the unconventional right are somewhat split on this question, but most of the other groups, [16:55] including the pragmatic and polite right are, are minorities of those groups say there should [17:01] be a mass deportation effort. [17:03] Um, on the other hand, if you ask people about, uh, the importance of border security, uh, having [17:09] strong borders, uh, and so forth, you find that, that across most groups, uh, most people say [17:17] this is an extremely important thing for the U S. [17:19] So often we're, and, and the groups that stand out as being less likely to say this are the [17:24] left work progressives in particular, and to a certain extent, the loyal liberals, but even [17:29] there, the loyal liberals, uh, you know, a sizable share of that group says, uh, it's important to [17:34] have, you know, it's important to the country to have a strong, secure borders. [17:38] And, and what's interesting about that is, is that we often talk about immigration, uh, in a, [17:46] in terms of a debate between the sort of extreme restrictive immigration policies and, and much [17:53] less so. [17:53] And in fact, most Americans and most of these groups are, are somewhere in the middle when [17:58] it comes to, to immigration. [18:00] Jocelyn Kiley, director of research at the Pew Research Center. [18:03] Thanks so much for your time. [18:04] Thank you.