Poll: Wyoming Most Conservative State; D.C. Most Liberal
The results of a Gallup survey, which asked respondents how they classify themselves politically, shows Wyoming to be the most conservative state, and Washington, D.C. as the most liberal part of the country.
Alabama is no longer the most conservative U.S. state. It's Wyoming, where 51.4 percent of residents identified themselves as conservative in 2013, says the survey released this week.
However, the District of Columbia, where 38.1 percent of residents were found to be liberal in 2013, continues to be the most liberal area, with Vermont and Massachusetts having the highest percentage of liberals, the poll said.
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True to popular perceptions, the most conservative states are located primarily in the South and West, while the most liberal states are found on the East and West Coasts of the United States, with the exception of Hawaii, the survey confirmed.
The top 10 conservative states are Wyoming, Mississippi, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Alabama, respectively. And the other top 10 liberal states include District of Columbia, Vermont, Massachusetts, Delaware, New York, Maine, California and New Jersey.
The poll found that overall, Americans were much more likely to self-identify as conservatives than as liberals last year, though that gap shrank from previous years.
Gallup added that while the national "conservative advantage" is still predominant, it has declined from 2012. The survey defines conservative advantage as the percentage of residents self-identifying as conservative minus the percentage self-identifying as liberal in each state.
The poll showed that the conservative advantage was at 14.6 percentage points in 2013, as compared to 15.9 points in the previous year.
The survey also noted that there have been more "blue" states than "red" states in 2013, yet a clear majority of Americans are ideologically at the center or right of center. However, Democrats continue to win elections because moderates, as a voting bloc, are solidly Democratic, it said. "If moderates begin voting with Republicans in the near or long-term future, there may indeed be a Republican revival on the national level."
However, while less than a quarter of Americans consider themselves ideologically liberal, the term has been steadily increasing in popularity over a generation, perhaps because Americans are becoming more comfortable with the term again – unlike in the 1980s.
The poll results are based on telephone interviews conducted between Jan. 2 and Dec. 29, 2013, on the Gallup Daily tracking survey, with a random sample of 178,527 adults living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
