I’ve been saying this for years. G. Elliott Morris does some sophisticated analysis of the voting population and proves, once and for all, that this idea that there is a huge number of people “in the middle” who are some who splitting the difference between the policies of the two parties which makes them “moderate” is nonsense. That group is just disengaged people who have no ideology at all:
The vast majority of the “moderates” are just completely non-ideological. Just over 80 percent of the respondents who scored between a -2 and 2 on either economic or social ideology had an ideological thinking score of 0 or 1. These “moderates” are not moderate, they’re disengaged. They didn’t express centrist views balancing left and right, or a preference for moderation on policy. They expressed no ideological views at all.
I took all 4,500 classified respondents in Steve’s data and calculated the following composition of the electorate based on voters scores on the three variables (”ideological thinking,” left-right economic policy, left-right social policy).
- Disengaged (34%): Low ideology scores and no clear issue positions
- Issue-focused but not ideological (25%): Mention economic or social concerns without ideological framing
- Ideological right (19%): Clear conservative positioning
- Ideological left (16%): Clear liberal positioning
- Mixed/moderate (6%): True centrists or ideological misfits
The “center” of American politics isn’t populated by careful centrists weighing “both sides” of the policy debate, or people who want the Democrats or Republicans to retreat from extremism. It’s populated by people who want their daily lives to be easier and aren’t really thinking about politics at all.
I have often quoted from this piece by Chris Hayes from over 20 years ago. It’s as correct today as it was then and yet political strategists are just allergic to accepting this notion and planning accordingly. You can’t win those people over with issue oriented campaigns because they don’t understand politics enough (and don’t care.) It certainly doesn’t mean that “moderating” on issues is what they are looking for.
Democratic strategists have personal incentives for thinking otherwise but unless they think they will somehow benefit from more of what the MAGA folks are offering they need to wise up. As Morris writes:
The median voter isn’t moderate, at least in how they describe what they like about the two major parties. Our data suggests that when it comes to how they feel about parties, the average American isn’t thinking ideologically at all.
Instead, most people are thinking about conditions: prices, wars, group conflicts, and whether things just feel like they’re getting better or worse. This suggests that a campaign more about conditions of daily life and the country would be more successful than seeking out issues or groups you can campaign against to seem ideologically “heterodox” (the 2025 word of the year for DC strategists and pundits).
This also explains why “moderate” candidates don’t automatically win. Contrary to the strategy implied by Median Voter Theorists, if you’re pitching yourself as the sensible centrist, you’re appealing to a constituency that barely exists. Just as the No Labels candidate for president. The voters in the middle aren’t there because they carefully weighed the options; they’re there because they’re not paying attention to the ideological debate at all.
I guess that means for these people it really is all about “vibes.” And if that’s the case then the Democrats should win with no problem. The vibes in the country are horrific, perhaps the worst I’ve ever seen. And it’s not just the economy. It’s the chaos, the violence, the insecurity, fear and pessimism. Trump can toot his horn all he wants, day in and day out, but he’s not convincing anyone that there is morning in America. This country is in deep trouble and even the non-ideological among us know it.
There’s reason why self-described Independents are abandoning the Republicans in droves.