It might seem like ancient history, but Chris Rock was onto something when he riffed about Iraq war-era politics in his 2004 stand-up special, “Never Scared.” He noted that, like most people, “I got some stuff I’m conservative about; I got some stuff I’m liberal about.”
I swapped out a couple of four-letter words there, but you get it: Voters are rarely in complete alignment with one political party or the other. They might lean to the left on guns and abortion but turn out to be law-and-order hawks on border security and policing. Some purists might see this as ideological incoherence; as a pollster, I call it completely normal.
In fact, it is the rigid alignment within the parties in Congress, which has increased over the years, that is abnormal. We have a two-party system, but the American electorate is much more complex than the partisan binary would have you believe.
Based on new research by my polling firm, I believe America is better described as having eight political “tribes” — groups organized not just around demographics, party affiliation or even issue positions, but also around their postures toward institutions and societal norms.
Close to 40 percent of Americans fall into one of two groups that look like our traditional right wing and left wing. We describe them as the Loyal Left and the Loyal Right.
But most voters fall into one of the six other tribes that take some of their views from the right and some from the left. While some of these groups may look the same on the surface, breaking for Democrats or Republicans in similar numbers, deeper down they diverge on some of our nation’s most pressing questions. The divisions among these groups are both roiling today’s Democratic Party and exposing potential fault lines in what is very likely to be a competitive G.O.P. presidential primary battle ahead of 2028.
Let’s start with the political left, since that’s where the action seems to be in this year’s primaries. We find that 21 percent of voters — including 42 percent of self-identified Democrats — fall into the Loyal Left, a group that is progressive on most issues and especially outraged by what its members see as widespread political corruption. They’re also most likely to say they’re “extremely motivated” to vote in the midterms, and over half say that their politics are very important to their personal identity. A good avatar for this group might be Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Their closest cousins are what we call Electability Democrats. Making up 10 percent of voters overall (and about 19 percent of the Democratic Party), these voters are also fired up to vote in the midterms and progressive on economic matters. However, this group is slightly more ethnically diverse than the Loyal Left, which is overwhelmingly white, and also diverges sharply on several key cultural questions. Electability Democrats generally oppose the idea of defunding the police, take more conservative views on the participation of transgender individuals in competitive sports and are more middle-of-the-road on immigration issues. Asked which group I’d sort James Carville into, I’d put him here.
There are two other groups that lean to the left of center on many issues but are somewhat less committed to the Democratic electoral cause. Though they are similar in their partisan sympathies, they are demographically distinct.
The American Institutionalists, who represent 11 percent of all voters, are the most likely to have a high income or a graduate degree. They are whiter and older; more than half were born before 1965. They tend to get their news from broadcast TV rather than social media. While they are frustrated with our political moment and 77 percent feel unfavorably toward President Trump, they maintain an abiding faith in America and its institutions, and in our ability to change — even reverse — course when Mr. Trump leaves office. In my imagination, they’ve all got a favorite biography written by Ron Chernow.
The Young and Disillusioned are pretty much the opposite. They are 9 percent of the electorate but an even smaller share of the Democrats’ most reliable voters because they are, as the name says, young and disillusioned. Social media is their top source of news, and politics is not a major part of their identity. They’re lower down on the income scale and occasionally have libertarian leanings on guns, foreign policy and regulation. They’re worried about the cost of living and distrustful of the media and politicians alike.
For Democrats to succeed in this year’s midterms, they’ll need to figure out how to hold all four of these groups together. They might want to pick off some voters from the Republican coalition, too.
On the right, first, look to a tribe we call Middle American Optimists, making up 11 percent of voters this year. They’ve little love for Democrats, and two-thirds voted for Mr. Trump in 2024. So far, they think he is doing an OK job as president, but they’re less than thrilled about the state of the economy. They’re younger and less churchgoing, and unsurprisingly much less conservative on both cultural and economic issues than the rest of their brethren on the political right. Only 37 percent of Middle American Optimists say they’re definitely voting for a Republican candidate this fall.
Critical to Mr. Trump’s reinvention of the G.O.P. has been our next group, the New Republican Populists, who are about 6 percent of the 2026 electorate. They are quite religious, live in more rural areas and oppose abortion, while rejecting much of the traditional conservative economic orthodoxy — they’re unlikely to say that you can just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. They’re OK with a bigger government, depending on what services it provides. They are, if you will, “Medicare for all, abortion for none” voters.
That brings us to the Moderate Right, who are 13 percent of voters and a group whose members are fairly pro-establishment in contrast with their more anti-establishment right-of-center peers. They still subscribe to a more traditional conservative view on economics and are fairly socially conservative. But perhaps by virtue of being a more female-heavy tribe, they’re also moderate on the issue of abortion and more open to the view that sexism remains a problem in society. Make no mistake: Most are still favorably disposed toward Mr. Trump, half report being Fox News viewers and three-quarters choose the Republican candidate in a generic matchup. But these days, they’re just not as excited about all of it — Come back, Nikki Haley.
The Loyal Right remains enthusiastic about Mr. Trump and ready to turn out for Republicans in this year’s midterms, but its size — 18 percent of the electorate — makes it insufficient, on its own, for retaining a Republican majority.
In lower-turnout elections like the ones this year and the partisan primaries we will have in 2028, the Loyal Left and the Loyal Right will be at their most powerful. Those voters show up when the others stay home. If you’re wondering why parties nominate candidates who are out on the extremes, it is often because of the voters who reliably participate in the process. Folks who are closer to the center will keep feeling let down or left out if they don’t throw their weight around, turning out in primaries as often as their more ideologically predictable peers.
There’s nothing wrong, of course, with being a party loyalist, but it’s worth reminding ourselves that most of us don’t line up neatly with the platform of either of America’s two major parties. It’s also worth keeping in mind that there’s a reason Democrats range from the aforementioned democratic socialist Representative Ocasio-Cortez to the centrist Senator Elissa Slotkin. And why Republicans range from the moderate Senator Lisa Murkowski to the populist Representative Anna Paulina Luna.
It may be more useful to think of our two parties as two coalitions. For now, at least, both have to accept some level of ideological incoherence in order to cobble together a majority.
Kristen Soltis Anderson is the author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up).”
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