The political realignment of America: Education overtakes race as key ideological divider

An analysis of survey data covering the last five U.S. presidential election years found that ideological differences between races have decreased sharply, while differences by education have grown substantially. Less educated Americans now tend to be more conservative. The paper was published in PNAS Nexus.

The dominant political ideologies in the United States are conservatism, liberalism or progressivism, and centrism or moderation, with smaller currents including libertarianism, democratic socialism, populism, and Christian nationalism. In Gallup’s 2025 averages, 35% of Americans identified as conservative, 33% as moderate, and 28% as liberal, making conservatives the largest self-identified ideological group but not an absolute majority.

Conservatism generally emphasizes limited government, lower taxation, market-oriented economics, stricter immigration enforcement, traditional social values, and strong policing or national defense. Liberalism generally supports a more active government role in social welfare and economic regulation, stronger protection of minority and reproductive rights, environmental action, and comparatively permissive immigration policies. Moderates often combine positions from both sides, while many Americans who call themselves independent or moderate nevertheless vote consistently for one of the two major parties.

Traditionally, there are visible demographic differences in the endorsement of different political ideologies. For example, women tend to be somewhat more liberal and more likely to vote for Democrats than men. Straight men are more likely to vote Republican. Black, Hispanic, and Asian voters also tended to lean toward Democrats, but these tendencies seem to be changing.

Study author Stephen Jessee explored how the political views of different demographic groups of Americans changed over time in the last couple of decades. He was particularly interested in differences between people of different races and education levels.

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He analyzed data from the Cooperative Election Study, which includes surveys in each of the five presidential election years from 2008 to 2024, with extremely large samples and overlapping sets of policy questions. Across these five survey waves, the study collected answers from over 250,000 respondents. More specifically, the data used in this study included 32,800 respondents from 2008, 54,435 from 2012, 64,600 from 2016, 61,000 from 2020, and 60,000 from 2024.

In the survey, participants reported their race and education. A total of 132 unique policy items, including questions about taxes, abortion, immigration, health care, and the environment, were used to assess respondent ideology on the liberal-conservative continuum.

Results showed that, in 2008, respondents identifying as White tended to be the most conservative, while those identifying as Black tended to be the most liberal. However, by 2024, these ideological differences between racial groups had decreased sharply. This mainly happened because Black and Hispanic respondents became more conservative on average.

In contrast, differences between groups by education increased. Back in 2008, graduates tended to be the most liberal, while people with lower education levels tended to be more conservative. By 2024, individuals with a high school diploma or less and those with some college became more conservative, while participants with college and graduate degrees became more liberal.

The difference was most pronounced in 2020, when these last two categories became sharply more liberal compared to 2016. However, in 2024, ideologies of respondents of all education levels shifted toward conservatism. Graduate and college-educated participants became roughly as liberal, on average, as they were in 2016, while participants with education up to high school became even more conservative. The trend of educational polarization occurred across all racial groups, but was most dramatic among White Americans.

“The results above demonstrate that over the past five presidential election years, ideological differences by race have declined dramatically, while education has become an increasingly prominent ideological divider,” the study authors concluded. “Americans’ ideologies have become more similar across races, driven primarily by Blacks moving sharply to the right, but also by Hispanics becoming slightly more conservative. Educational differences have increased among all racial groups, albeit to somewhat different degrees.”

“These findings stand in contrast to others that have found that educational polarization in partisan vote margins, as opposed to the ideological positions studied here, has increased only among whites and not among minorities and demonstrate that American politics have realigned not just in terms of previously documented partisan vote shares but also in terms of policy-based ideological positions.”

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of historical ideological shifts in the U.S. However, ideological shifts are shaped by events in current political life, specific ways in which opinion leaders interpret their ideologies at specific time points, and many other factors stemming from society and the wider environment. Because of this, past trends may not be predictive of future trends.

The paper, “Americans’ ideological differences have decreased by race, increased by education,” was authored by Stephen Jessee.