Old labels wearing out

“Conservatives on the rise?

After two election cycles in the political wilderness, conservatives appear to be rallying in advance of the 2010 midterm election.

In new Gallup numbers released this morning, 42 percent of Americans describe themselves as conservative while 35 percent say they are moderates and 20 percent call themselves liberals.

The 42 percent of self-described conservatives would be a record high for Gallup, which has been asking the question since 1992, if the trend continued through the final six months of the year. (The data for the first six months of 2010 was culled from eight national surveys conducted by Gallup.) The last time four in ten Americans (or more) identified themselves as conservatives was 2004 when Republicans re-elected President George W. Bush and made gains in the House and Senate.

The Gallup numbers are not inconsistent with other recent data -- although they do paint a slightly more rosy picture for conservatives than other polls.

In this week's NBC/Wall Street Journal survey, 38 percent of the sample identified as conservative while 36 percent said they were moderates and 23 percent called themselves liberals.

The rise of conservatives in the Gallup data comes amid increasing signs -- including a National Public Radio poll of 70 of the most competitive congressional districts in the country -- that enthusiasm among Republicans running very high.”