Tracking Americans’ Ideology in All 50 States
Conservatives have long outnumbered liberals in the United States, but their numerical advantage has waxed and waned over the years. A recent rightward shift under the Biden administration redounded to Republicans’ benefit, resulting in their best presidential cycle since 2004. Ahead of the next presidential election in 2028, Morning Consult is tracking voters' ideological alignment across the United States on a daily basis, providing an unparalleled look at their ideological leanings in all 50 states.
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Key Takeaways
Conservatives outnumber liberals in 38 states.
At 55%, Wyoming has the highest share of residents who identify as conservative, followed by South Dakota (51%) and Alabama, North Dakota and Idaho (at 50%).
In no state does a majority of voters identify as liberal, with the highest shares residing in Vermont (42%), Washington (39%) and Oregon (37%).
Hawaii and Nevada are home to the largest share of self-identified moderates (33%), along with 31% of voters in Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware and New Hampshire.
Each state’s ideological lean
Swing-state ideology, by demographic
- The average voter is more likely to be conservative than liberal in each presidential-level swing state, with Georgia and North Carolina leaning furthest to the right and Nevada closest to the middle.
- Gen Z and Black voters — a key topic of discussion following rightward shifts among those groups in the 2024 election — nonetheless lean more liberal than conservative across the swing-state map. The narrowest advantage for the left is in Arizona.
- Fewer women than men identify as conservative in each of the swing states. The largest gender-based ideology gap appears in Arizona, where women are almost evenly divided between conservatism and liberalism, followed by Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Methodology
All state-level data is based on a six-month roll-up of responses from Morning Consult’s daily U.S. tracking survey among registered voters. Margins of error among registered voters vary by state, from as low as +/-4 percentage points in less populous states such as Vermont to +/-1 point in more populous states such as California.
Consult our State-Level Tracking Methodology Primer for additional details on the state-level data sources, including sampling and data collection procedures, weighting and representativeness, margins of error, and question wording.
About Morning Consult
Morning Consult is a global decision intelligence company changing how modern leaders make smarter, faster, better decisions. The company pairs its proprietary high-frequency data with applied artificial intelligence to better inform decisions on what people think and how they will act. Learn more at morningconsult.com.
Eli Yokley is Morning Consult’s U.S. politics analyst. Eli joined Morning Consult in 2016 from Roll Call, where he reported on House and Senate campaigns after five years of covering state-level politics in the Show Me State while studying at the University of Missouri in Columbia, including contributions to The New York Times, Politico and The Daily Beast. Follow him on Twitter @eyokley. Interested in connecting with Eli to discuss his analysis or for a media engagement or speaking opportunity? Email [email protected].
Cameron Easley is Morning Consult’s head of political and economic analysis. He has led Morning Consult's coverage of politics and elections since 2016, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Politico, Axios, FiveThirtyEight and on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. Cameron joined Morning Consult from Roll Call, where he was managing editor. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Follow him on Twitter @cameron_easley. Interested in connecting with Cameron to discuss his analysis or for a media engagement or speaking opportunity? Email [email protected].
