In U.S., shift to conservatism does not mean revolution

If I were a conservative, I would probably tout the newGallup study showing that conservatives now outnumber moderates, as Bill Kristol did in his column on Tuesday. But I’d be wary of making too much of what is a rather small shift in the ideological self-description of Americans. And out of curiosity, I checked around with other pollsters to see what they were finding. The results were mixed.

First, those Gallup numbers: Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 20 percent as liberal. “This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group,” Gallup reported of its study based on combining16 surveys for a sample of 16,321. 

The shift from 2008 is hardly startling. Conservatives were up three points from 2008, moderates down one and liberals down two. On the other hand, the country was ever so slightly less conservative in the most recent third quarter of the year than it was in the second quarter: According to Gallup, the conservatives’ advantage over moderates went from 6 points in the second quarter to 3 points in the recent quarter. It’s not exactly clear which way the trend is running.

Of course these are all small shifts, and that’s the point: We are not going through some ideological revolution.