New Tribes
Bubba
12 Sep
A new report reveals simply categorizing voters as left or right fails to capture the full complexity of America’s political landscape. (Echelon Insights)
Echelon Insights’ 2024 Voter Cluster Analysis: The country can best be divided into eight distinct political tribes.
Chart: Echelon Insights
Zoom out: Broadly speaking, 38% of the electorate is clustered on the right, 22% in the center, and 39% on the left.
Voters tend to prefer the right-leaning perspective on social issues and the left-leaning view on economics.
Zoom in: Among GOP leaners, MAGA conservatives (30%) and right-leaning populists (24%) dominate, leaving Reaganite conservatives (18%) heavily outnumbered.
Chart: Echelon Insights
A big idea from Echelon Insights:
Political ideology can be visualized through quadrants — with economic issues on one axis and social/cultural issues on another. But there’s an increasingly important third dimension: trust in institutions. This new pro- vs. anti-establishment dimension creates meaningful divides in both political parties.
Exhibit A: With the exception of J.D. Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy, every person in the image below is a former Democrat.
Bubba’s Two Cents
This report really drives home how much traditional conceptions of politics have been scrambled over the past decade or so. There are also some clarifying nuggets of information — for instance, Reaganites make up a big enough share of the GOP to have their concerns heard, but don’t have the numbers to drive the agenda. Meanwhile, it makes a ton of sense that Staunch Progressives are now the largest faction of Democrats.