Amna Nawaz:
A new report from the Pew Research Center says American politics are not as simple as red versus blue. They’re often messy, complicated, and hard to put into a box.
Pew surveyed more than 10,000 Americans and split the public into nine distinct groups along political and cultural values, among them, the faith first conservatives, the loyal liberals, and the tuned-out middle.
Despite a polarized political environment, the report finds just a minority of Americans are truly all in for either party.
Jocelyn Kiley is director of political research at the Pew Research Center. She’s one of the authors of this report. She joins us now.
Welcome. Thanks for being here.
Jocelyn Kiley, Director of Political Research, Pew Research Center: Thank you.
Amna Nawaz:
So let’s take some of these groups and turn here.
Among folks who are inclined to support Republicans, what is it that unites them and where are their sharpest disagreements?
Jocelyn Kiley:
So we have a number of different groups that lean Republican. Two, I would call the all-in groups. We have a group called the no apologies right and the faith first conservatives. And then we have what we call the unconventional right and the pragmatic and polite right.
They are united generally by a taste for a smaller government and also support for a strong military presence and concerns about things like crime and border security. But what divides the groups on the right are some of the specifics on some of those issues.
So, for instance, those two all-in groups are really all in on the Trump administration’s policies around deportations. The other groups are not. And that shows up in other areas as well, on some social issues, issues around — things around race, also even what the role of government should be.
That group I mentioned called the pragmatic and polite right actually doesn’t like a bigger government, but also does see a role for government in health care and so forth. And we see similar dynamics on the left.
Amna Nawaz:
Tell us more about that.
Jocelyn Kiley:
Sure. We have got our loyal liberals and our leftward progressives. And then we have groups that we call our order and opportunity left and our left-out left.
And what we see is some traditional moderate and liberal divides on the Democratic side. So those middle groups are still groups that want to see a secure border, but they’re also quite economically liberal. At the same time, our groups like leftward progressives and loyal liberals are much more liberal on economics, on immigration and so forth.
And we also see some divides when it comes to some social issues.
Amna Nawaz:
So let’s talk about — more about the group in the middle, because, oftentimes, around political conversations, it’s the loudest people, some of the more extreme voices that tend to dominate the conversation.
You identify this group called the tuned-out middle, who are somewhere in that middle there. How big is that center group and what defines that?
Jocelyn Kiley:
So, in general, we have — all the groups in the middle tend to be less politically engaged, but the group we call the tuned-out middle is really very low political engagement.
Only about a third of them voted in 2024, and they pay attention to politics at a much lower level. That’s a group that’s about one in 10 Americans. But there are some of these other groups that are also in the middle, they may tilt to the left or tilt to the right, that also are not as engaged as some of the more ideological groups on both the left and the right.
Amna Nawaz:
And for the groups that are sort of flanking the center, right, who tend to lean to the right or lean to the left, are some of those same issues like the immigration and economy issues, are those the things that divide them as well?
Jocelyn Kiley:
They are to some degree.
So I will take the left as an example. Our order and opportunity left, which is a moderate Democratic-leaning group, a little older, very racially and ethnically diverse, financially stressed, they really do want — crime is a top concern. They want a secure border.
And so they separate in some ways from the groups that are further to the left. But there’s a group also sort of in the middle on the left that we call the left-out left. That group is fairly young. But it’s — and it’s not as conservative on those issues of immigration and crime.
So, even within the center-left, there are some divisions there, and we see a similar pattern on the right as well.
Amna Nawaz:
It’s a fascinating way to add nuance to this conversation, instead of just left and right and red and blue. And you have done this before. There was a similar sorting of ideologies and typologies five years ago you did.
Back then, you had groups like the stressed sideliners, the outsider left, the ambivalent right. When you look at how the groupings have changed, what does it tell you about where our country has gone in the last few years?
Jocelyn Kiley:
Yes, I mean, there’s always — there’s a through line. So some of the DNA is the same. We do name the groups anew each time.
But one of the things I think that we’re seeing, on the left, in particular, that group I mentioned called the leftward progressives, they are the most left. They are about 7 percent of the public overall. They’re somewhat critical of the Democratic Party. I wouldn’t go so far as to say overly critical.
But that’s a newish development. There was maybe the hint of that in our last typology, but it’s clearer now. And on the right, I think some of what we have seen is a reshuffling that the coalition on the right — we had a group last time around that we called the populist right. It’s not that group doesn’t exist anymore, but it’s been absorbed into these other groups in some way.
Amna Nawaz:
So for candidates looking ahead to the midterms, they’re going to have to appeal to some of those center groups, right, to build a winning coalition. How do they do that?
Jocelyn Kiley:
Midterms are really interesting because they’re individual elections in 435 places. So it’s very hard, but I think one of the keys is that the people who are most active in the primaries tend to be on those ideological wings.
But in the general, you need to win over some of those groups that maybe aren’t so well in on those issues. And that’s going to be a different thing both on the left and the right and honestly in different districts.
Do you need to — on the left, you have got this group called the left-out left. You need to motivate them. They need to have a reason to vote, because they are younger. They’re less engaged in politics. On the right, there’s this group called the pragmatic and polite right.
They’re quite — they’re the oldest group in the political typology. And they do tend to turn out, but they are much more moderate in their position than a lot of other right individuals, so you will have to kind of persuade them that you are more moderate if you’re trying to appeal to that group.
Amna Nawaz:
All right, Jocelyn Kiley of the Pew Research Center, thank you so much.
Jocelyn Kiley:
Thank you.
