<p class="p5"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;">Fewer Americans identify as ‘liberal’ than in years past, reports </span><i>Gallup</i><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;">.</span></span></p>
<p class="p6"><span class="s1">Data collected by 21 telephone surveys conducted in 2019 suggest 37% of Americans identify as politically conservative, 35% as moderate, and 24% as liberal.</span></p>
<p class="p6"><span class="s1">Compared to 2018, these figures represent a 2-point increase for conservatives and a 2-point decrease for liberals &#8211; a trend we haven’t seen since 2011 when the Tea Party enjoyed a burst of support. </span></p>
<p class="p6"><span class="s1">“The change is modest but bears watching,” notes <i>The Wall Street Journal.</i> “It could be a blip on the way to a center-left America or the beginning of the end of a generational leftward drift that accelerated under Barack Obama’s presidency.”</span></p>
<p class="p6"><strong><span class="s1">As expected, the surveys also suggested more ideological diversity among Democrats than Republicans:</span></strong></p>
<p class="p6"><span class="s1">Among Republicans, 73% of survey respondents described themselves as conservative, 21% as moderate, and just 4% as liberal.</span></p>
<p class="p6"><span class="s1">Among Democrats, 14% of respondents described themselves as</span><span class="s1"> conservative, 36% as moderate, and 49% as liberal.</span></p>
<p class="p6"><span class="s1">The 49% figure represents a decrease from 2018, when 51% of Democrats identified as liberal. Move back to 1994 and that figure drops to 25%.</span></p>
<p class="p6"><span class="s1">Among Independent respondents, 30% described themselves as conservative, 45% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.</span></p>
<p><strong>Author&#8217;s Note: </strong><span class="s1">In addition to Obama&#8217;s influence, this ideological shift is likely related to Trump’s presidency as well as the rise of Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders. Are voters running towards something or away?</span></p>
<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s Note:</strong> Liberals would have you believe that there is an avalanche toward the left, that all of America is becoming &#8220;woke.&#8221; This is good news, even if the results are small and perhaps even within the margin of error. It means that we may have the opportunity to maintain a sane conservative faction even beyond the Trump administration.</p>