Battleground Polls and Conservative Strength: Liberals will have to try very hard to spin this one

American Thinker ^ | 04/04/2014 | Bruce Walker

[SeekAndFind]

The latest Battleground Poll, compared with prior Battleground Polls, shows the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as “conservative” dropping. The percentage is lower than almost any Battleground Poll in the last fifteen years. The percentage of Americans who call themselves “liberal,” by contrast, is at an all-time high.

Modification in the demographics of the poll sample may have something to do with the change. Women form 53% of the sample, while women are 50.6% of the population. Blacks are 13% of the Battleground sample, a smidgen more that the black percentage of the population. As I noted a few years ago, the Battleground Poll has also increased the percentage of young adults in the sample, and the percentage of young adults in the sample rose just as the percentage of Americans describing themselves as “conservative” slipped a bit.

So what does the March 2014 Battleground Poll say about the “conservative / liberal” division of America? Conservatives are still the overwhelming majority of Americans, as every single Battleground Poll in the last fifteen years has shown: 56% of Americans are “conservative,” while 40% are “liberal,” and “moderate” and “don’t know” are the piddling remainder. Excluding the last two indefinite categories and looking at America as a “conservative” versus “liberal” division, then, 58.3% of Americans are “conservative,” and 41.7% are “liberal.” This is identical to the results of the January 2014 Battleground Poll.

Although many conservatives seem reluctant to accept this profoundly good reflection of ordinary Americans, the Battleground Poll has begun to dig deeper into that response. Pollsters ask Americans who are unhappy with their political party to state if they wish their party would become “more conservative,” “more moderate,” or “more liberal,” or else if they have another response or “don’t know.”

[relictele]

Walk through a mall or an airport and you will quickly surmise that the majority of people in this world lack intelligence and/or common sense.

Polls that confirm this fact are surplus to requirements but for some reason people obsess over them.

I admit it’s doubly hard work living one’s own life while trying to avoid the fallout of the idiocy of others but that is the fate of any rational being.

[jacknhoo]

All this would matter, only if dead and duplicate voting did not occur.

[dblshot]

only if dead and duplicate voting did not occur.
I wonder what makes the dead vote overwhelming liberal? I guess that from the look of the actors in Walking Dead, their brains are mush. But then also must be those of live Obama voters.

[buckalfa]

It might be more interesting to see them do a poll with the choices being "those who work" versus those "who take".

The labels conservative and liberal may no longer be the prime demographic to consider.

[Beagle8U]

The problem is in how those polled define ‘conservative’.

Plenty of mushy moderates and RINOs define themselves as conservative, and outright socialist/communist define themselves as moderate.

I'll bet half of those polled thing O’bastard is a moderate centrist.

[MNDude]

Unfortunately, a lot of those conservatives are pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-big-government, pro-taxes, anti-religion, anti-gun conservatives.

[ScottinVA]

I’ve never placed much value in these polls that try to define who’s “conservative” vs. “liberal.” I doubt if a lot of respondents even understand what constitutes “conservative.” They may carry the believe they’re “fiscal conservatives,” yet are flaming liberal on everything else.

The country is markedly turning left... the clearest harbinger is how people vote, and in Presidential election years, the leanings of voters are swinging further left with each passing year.