When it comes to politics, how do you identify? Slightly conservative? Extremely liberal? Moderate, middle of the road? Academics, political campaigns, and pollsters commonly use people’s political identity as a heuristic for classifying and making judgments about what people believe, who they will vote for, and whether they should be targeted for political persuasion. Such findings suggest that researchers, campaigners, and pollsters must use caution when extrapolating policy preferences and voting behavior from political identity, and that animosity toward the other end of the political spectrum is sometimes misplaced. Meanwhile, those with opposing identities sometimes endorse identical policy stances. Because the meaning of political identity is inconsistent across locations, individuals who share the same political identity sometimes espouse opposing policy stances. we find that even when people share the same political identity, those in “bluer” locations are more likely to support left-leaning policies and vote for Democratic candidates than those in “redder” locations. But, does political identity mean the same thing from place to place? Using data collected from across the U.S. It is commonly assumed that how individuals identify on the political spectrum–whether liberal, conservative, or moderate–has a universal meaning when it comes to policy stances and voting behavior.
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