In a moment when partisan tensions feel as though they are reaching a breaking point, is there anyone left who doesn’t live at the ideological extremes? In other words, is there still a political center, and if so, where is it?
For politicians, the center has atrophied. Elected officials in both major political parties are drifting further apart ideologically, and the alignment of ideology and party — conservatives coalescing into the Republican Party, liberals into the Democratic Party — has made the contrasts in our politics feel more stark. As the political scientist Lee Drutman describes it, in the past, “coalitions were flexible, issue dependent and thus multidimensional, with few permanent enemies and many possible allies on all issues.” Today we feel like we are “locked in a zero-sum struggle along a single ‘us-versus-them’ dimension.”
But among voters, there’s a very different story happening: That’s where the center may be alive and well.
For those looking for simple and expansive definitions of the center, there is plenty of data measuring self-described independents and moderates. And there are many of them: Some three in 10 Americans identify as moderate, with an additional 21 percent who say they are only “somewhat conservative” and 15 percent who are only “somewhat liberal.” If we define the center as those without a firm party affiliation, we get more than four in 10 Americans considering themselves independents (though most of those independents lean toward one of the major parties).
But these labels have only so much descriptive power. Do “moderates” or “independents” actually hold middle-of-the-road views on a right-left spectrum? Do they truly sit between the two ideologically sorted parties, or do they break the right-left spectrum entirely, holding a jumble of views across a wide range of issues?
To answer this question, inspired by Mr. Drutman’s work, for years I have asked voters a series of questions about their economic views as well as their social and cultural views. The purpose is to see how voters might sort out, going beyond the conventional right-left spectrum and their own self-reported partisan or ideological labeling.
The results confirm that few Americans live at the extremes. In my data, only 13 percent of Americans hold views that could be categorized as “strong liberal” and only 11 percent as “strong conservative.” But it is the remaining three-quarters of Americans who are fascinating to categorize — they defy what many people may think of as America’s political center.
As a pollster, I am often asked to help explain political reality to audiences of leaders across a range of sectors. I take a bit of pleasure in the following exercise: I pose a simple question to the audience. “Show of hands: How many of you think of yourselves as socially more progressive, but maybe fiscally more conservative?” Inevitably, a healthy share — if not a majority — of the room’s hands go up. When they think of themselves as centrists or moderates, I find this is often the archetype on their minds.
Then I break the bad news: Only 5 percent of American voters feel the same way.
In fact, more than four times as many take the opposite view, leaning slightly more socially conservative while embracing a more robust role for government spending and regulation. In my 2025 research, 22 percent of Americans fell into this category, a figure that has been steadily climbing by two percentage points each year since 2021. Much of this has been driven by a drift away from traditional economic conservatism among Republicans, who have become open to a more expansive role for government in the economy while still holding culturally right-of-center views.
It is important to bear in mind that someone who is a “social conservative, fiscal liberal” — supposedly such an unusual combination in American politics that in 2008 the show “30 Rock” made it the subject of a joke — is much more likely to be the avatar of centrism in America today than a deficit hawk with an “In This House” sign on the lawn.
The reality is that few voters take all of their issue opinions from one ideological viewpoint or another. When analyzing my survey data deeply, clusters of voters emerge who might overall be socially conservative but lean progressive on an issue like abortion or free speech. There are plenty of voters who lean socially progressive but who have reservations around issues like transgender sports participation or gun rights.
Voters are complicated. People in the American center are likely to be heterodox in their viewpoints, taking a few stances from Column A and a few from Column B. There isn’t a single issue position that easily defines who is and isn’t part of the center.
Our country is so often described as polarized and hopelessly divided, but the reality is that there is a great deal more ideological complexity in the American electorate than we might think. And while political independents are the most likely to say they believe “government is broken and we need bold outsiders with fresh ideas to take on the system,” they are also just as likely as Republicans and Democrats to hold the somewhat optimistic view that “our institutions need repair and can be fixed if we try.”
Perhaps it is better to think of the political center today less as a point on a spectrum and more as a mind-set, an openness to weaving together a worldview with various strands from right and left — paired with a belief that as broken as things are now, there is hope things can get better in the future.
Kristen Soltis Anderson is a contributing Opinion writer for The New York Times. She is a Republican pollster and a speaker, a commentator and the author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up).”
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