Poll: How Liberal or Conservative Are Americans?

Rasmussen Reports has taken a look at how conservative or liberal the voters are in different aspects of their every day life. They found that 41% of the voters think of themselves as conservative when it comes to the issues of taxes, government spending and the regulation of private business while 41% consider themselves to be moderates and 12% say they are liberal.

Meanwhile, when it comes to social issues, 37% think of themselves as conservatives, 30% say they are moderate and 30% liberal. This includes issues like abortion, praying in public and the separation of church and state.

Breaking it down by political parties, 67% of the Republicans think of themselves as being conservative on fiscal matters while 50% of the Democrats and 49% of the independent voters think of themselves as being moderates when it comes to fiscal matters.

When it comes to the social issues, the figures are a bit different with 61% of the Republican voters considering themselves to be conservative while 43% of the Democrats say they are liberal. With the independent voters, they could not be split any more evenly than they are with 30% saying they are conservative it comes to social issues, 35% considering themselves to be moderate and 33% liberal.

Then they took the fiscal and social issues and put the results together. The largest segment of the population, 24% say they are conservative on both the fiscal and social issues while 17% consider themselves to be moderate both fiscally and socially, 14% who say they are moderate on the fiscal issues and conservative on the social ones 10% who consider themselves to be fiscally conservative and moderate on the social issues, 9% who say they are liberal on both the social and fiscal issues, and lastly, 6% who say they are conservative on the fiscal issues, but liberal on the social ones.

As is to be expected, there are differences when it comes to the political affiliations. There is 47% of the Republican voters who consider themselves to be conservative on both the fiscal and social issues. The Democrats, however, are much more split in their opinions with 29% who say they are moderate on the fiscal issues, but are socially liberal, 19% who think of themselves as moderate all the way around, and 16% who say they are liberal on both the fiscal and social sides of life.

Source: Rasmussen Reports http://www.rasmussenreports.com/