Friday, August 14, 2009

Race and Ideology

Yet another report on ideology came out today, this time from Gallup, showing that there are more conservatives than liberals in every state. Republicans often look at these and wonder why they're not winning more.

Part of the reason is that Democrats have about a 30 point identification advantage right now among moderates. But another reason is that black voters, although generally perceived to be liberals, do not tend to identify themselves that way.

Consider these figures on the ideological identification of African Americans in our polls over the last month:

State

Liberal

Moderate

Conservative

National

22

50

28

North Carolina

19

62

18

Virginia

27

55

18

New Jersey

12

77

12

Louisiana

28

43

29


Nationally there are actually more blacks who identify as conservatives than liberals, and the numbers break down pretty evenly in the individual states. Black voters may tend toward the liberal side on most individual issues and certainly vote for more liberal candidates close to 100% of the time, but they don't think of themselves as liberals. That's one reason why these ideology numbers don't go that far in explaining voting behavior.

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