American politics have polarized faster than in other democracies, according to a report published in the National Bureau of Economic Research. This trend is reflected in the ideological movement of the U.S. Congress, with both Democrats and Republicans moving further and further away from an ideological center, though Republicans have done so on average more intensely. Indeed, the recent struggle of Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to gain the speakership role highlighted the degree to which hard-right conservative politicians have come to hold disproportionately large sway over the Republican majority.
With the 2024 presidential primaries beginning to ramp up, everyone will soon be talking about "red" states and "blue" states . But coloring in an entire state based on the party that tends to prevail there in statewide elections obscures a lot of political diversity. In most states, there are neighborhoods, towns, and counties that hold steadfast against their neighbors and vote for the party that holds an opposing ideology to a majority of the state's residents.
To develop an understanding of the complexity of the American political landscape, Stacker compiled voter turnout data from the New York Times and statewide political ideology data from Gallup to rank states by their share of self-identifying liberals. Ties were broken by the corresponding percentage of conservatives, as able. Voter data was then used to identify counties within these states with the highest percentage of self-identifying conservatives.
In looking at these counties, data from government agencies such as the Census Bureau and research institutes—such as the Pew Research Center and the Public Religion Research Institute—were used to highlight and analyze demographic factors that might make the political ideology of the county apparent. Percentages of people identifying as "white Christian" in each county were sourced from the 2020 Census of American Religion. Detailed voter turnout data was unavailable for Virginia, Alaska, Louisiana, and Alabama.
Self-described ideology, like Gallup's, is just one way to measure a person or group's politics, of course. Vote choice is another. You could also look at party affiliation, for example, and your list might look different. In many states in the South, for instance, Black voters are the majority of Democratic voters. And – looking at vote choice – there are pockets of deep blue in otherwise ruby-red states. But Black voters are far less likely than white voters to call themselves "liberal."
In terms of understanding how these demographic factors affect the political lean of an American voter, a few qualities stand out as the biggest and most reliable predictors of party affiliation and ideological tendency. Namely, religion, race, education, and where a voter falls on the urban-rural divide. To distill these complexities into a couple of takeaways: Racially diverse communities lean Democrat by wide margins, and white Christians account for a large percentage of Republican votes. The highly educated tend to lean Democrat quite broadly, and in presidential elections, rural areas see a 15-22 point increase in Republican votes regardless of other variables such as race and education. Gender, age, and sexuality all play into the equation as well, with older voters leaning conservative, women leaning Democrat, men leaning slightly Republican, and LGBTQ+ voters overwhelmingly liberal.
