Among the increasingly growing segment of Americans who identify with neither party and call themselves independents, there are fewer moderates. Many in the “middle” hold strong, ideological views. The study concluded that three groups in the center of the Pew typology “have very little in common, aside from their avoidance of partisan labels.”
“What we see is a much bigger and increasingly diverse middle,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew center. “What’s striking about it is that they’re not so moderate. People in the middle have some strong, well-defined ideological points of view.”
The Pew study offers a political typology of the nation. It is the fifth such study since Pew began the project in 1987 and, as with past studies, provides a wealth of data and insights into the state of politics. The Pew Center breaks down the current electorate into eight politically engaged groups, along with a ninth that is largely disengaged, based on their party identification, values and attitudes on major issues.
To underscore the diversity of views among those in the middle of the typology, the study points to what it calls Libertarians and New Coalition Democrats. Those who populate these groups share demographic similarities — including education and affluence — but hold sharply divergent political views, especially on the role of government.
The study highlights fissures that cause tensions within each party’s base. More broadly, the document points at the coming clash in 2012 that will test the staying power of a conservative movement that flexed its muscles in 2010 against the strength of the coalition President Obama assembled when he won the White House in 2008.
Michael Dimock, a Pew Center associate director, pointed to three examples of the larger gulf between the most liberal Democrats and the most conservative Republicans since the last study in 2005.
On the question of whether government should do more to help the needy, even if that means bigger deficits, or whether government can’t afford to provide that assistance, there was a gap of 65 percentage points between the two groups. Six years ago, that gap was 52 points.
On the question of whether corporations make too much profit, the gap today is 64 points compared with 56 six years ago.
The biggest change came on the question of whether government is almost always wasteful and inefficient. Six years ago the gap was 20 points, and today it’s 68 points. Dimock cautioned that part of the reason the gap is much larger now is that conservatives were less critical of government when Republicans controlled the White House and the Congress.
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