A Fascinating New Look at America’s Political Tribes
Last week, our friends at Echelon Insights—a Republican-leaning polling and data firm—released an update to their Political Tribes project. Unlike similar efforts to build out typologies of America’s political tribes, such as those from More In Common and Pew Research, Echelon examines likely voters rather than all Americans. They build on this research as well as their own past research, which has largely focused on Americans’ attitudes along sociocultural and economic dimensions, by adding a third factor: trust in institutions (or lack thereof).
The result is a novel attempt to better understand the American electorate at this current moment—what voters believe and how their beliefs have impacted their voting habits. Echelon’s findings echo some of our own observations from the recent past, including that Americans are a more complex bunch than many people realize, not everyone fits neatly into the Democrat-versus-Republican paradigm, and there are a number of places wherein people in each major party actually have some things in common with members of the other.
The full thing is worth reading. Below are some of the other big-picture takeaways from Echelon’s report.
The “fiscally liberal, socially conservative” moment
Though traditional American politics has for decades been thought to fall along a basic left-right spectrum, the rise of Trump has scrambled this conventional wisdom. Trump-ism is in many ways decidedly anti-conservative, as it favors a more active role for government. As Trump has taken a greater hold in the country’s political life, we have witnessed a rise in the influence of a faction of Americans whom Echelon deems to be “populists,” or voters who are “fiscally liberal but socially conservative.”
While these voters were not long ago the butt of jokes, they now constitute a sizable and growing bloc of the electorate. According to Echelon’s data, just four years ago, populists only made up 14 percent of the electorate while conservatives were a plurality (41 percent). Fast-forward five years and that gap has significantly narrowed, with the share identifying as conservative falling to just 31 percent while the populist ranks grew to 22 percent—and the latter group’s rise coming directly at the expense of the former.
Meanwhile, many former Republicans—often college-educated and higher-income-earning—who have left the party over the last decade due to its rightward shift on cultural matters often purport to be “socially liberal but fiscally conservative.” Whereas these folks may have supported GOP economic policies that dominated the Reagan era like deregulation and lower taxes, many hold more open attitudes on issues like free trade and immigration and socially liberal beliefs on things like gay marriage and abortion. As the salience of culture has grown and the importance of economic considerations has declined, many of these voters began voting Democratic.
However, Echelon (and others) has found in recent years that the share of voters who hold this worldview, which might be best described as libertarianism, classical liberalism, or even corporate boardroom liberalism, is remarkably small: just five percent comprised this bloc in their latest survey.
America’s shifting attitudes on culture and economics
The rise of the populist faction is a good reflection of where the country overall stands—and where it’s heading. Voters lean slightly rightward on culture, with 53 percent identifying as cultural conservatives against 47 percent identifying as cultural liberals. On five of nine specific topics, including immigration, political correctness, and transgender athletes, the country leans more to the right; on the other four, including abortion, sexism, and gay marriage, they lean more left. But when compared to 2024, voters’ attitudes grew more conservative in all but one cultural area—immigration, where they swung leftward by a massive 21 points, a notable shift as the presidency changed hands.1
On economics, though, Americans are far less divided. Fully 64 percent are labeled as economic liberals compared to just 36 percent who lean to the right on those issues. Across nine different questions, voters leaned left on all but one (most people still believe you can get ahead in America if you are willing to work hard). What’s more: on six of those nine questions, voters moved left compared to one year ago, with the largest swing (16 points) coming on the “work hard” question. On the remaining three, voters still lean left, including overwhelmingly so on questions related to taxing the rich and guaranteed healthcare coverage.
The leftward drift on economic matters appears to be driven by the growing divide among Republicans—specifically, with the rise of populists in their ranks. Whereas Democrats are quite ideologically homogenous on both cultural and economic issues, Republicans have become more economically moderate on the whole.
Some support for the establishment remains
In addition to cultural and economic attitudes, Echelon captured a third dimension informing voters’ behavior and beliefs: support for the “establishment” and American institutions. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, they found that support remained fairly high for the establishment. Overall, roughly 57 percent of voters sampled generally had “pro-establishment” attitudes, including on four of six specific issue questions.
The two establishment groups that fared worst were politicians and journalists—greater shares of voters viewed them unfavorably than favorably. Still, large majorities said they trusted experts and research over the opinions of ordinary people to form their opinions, thought free trade has generally helped the country, and believed that cooperative international institutions help create a safer and more stable world.
Attitudes about the establishment broke down somewhat on traditional ideological lines. Liberals overwhelmingly have pro-establishment views while conservatives are largely anti-establishment. Meanwhile, populists and libertarians are evenly split. Adding this dimension enabled Echelon to provide a more in-depth look at the electorate than past studies have managed.
The fringes are minorities in each party
Echelon’s study confirmed something we have reported in the past: the right and left wings of the Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively, are only a minority within each coalition. Using their new typology, they found that the Hard Right and Hard Left each make up one-third of their side—leaving two-thirds on each side that are not part of those wings—and only 16–17 percent of the broader electorate.
This isn’t to suggest that all remaining tribes are ideologically moderate. But they are more likely to hold some views that don’t wholly align with their “side.” The problem, for those who care about the increasingly polarized nature of American politics, is that the fringes are overrepresented among the highest-propensity (or likeliest) voters. This is especially true among the GOP: the Hard Right makes up a majority (52 percent) of high-propensity Republicans, which could make it more difficult for less ideological—or perhaps less MAGA-aligned—Republican candidates to win. The Hard Left is also the largest faction of Democrats’ likeliest voters, though they are a small plurality, while less left-wing Democratic voters are collectively greater in size.
Plenty of intra-coalitional disagreements
One of the most interesting parts of the report examined disagreements among the tribes that broke for the same presidential candidate in 2024. Of the eight tribes, four backed Harris while four supported Trump.
Echelon gauged these disagreements by analyzing how each faction answered the above questions about culture, economics, and the establishment. Some of their findings were hardly surprising. For example, the Hard Right adopted the conservative or anti-establishment position on every question, and the Hard Left took the liberal position in every instance and the pro-establishment position all but once.
But outside of the wings, there is a fair amount of ideological diversity on each side. Take the Trump-supporting groups. The three non-wing factions—New Republican Populists, the Moderate Right, and Middle American Optimists—agreed with the liberal position on at least one cultural issue each while two of them leaned left on multiple economic questions. The Moderate Right believed that women face obstacles men do not, while Middle American Optimists supported legal abortion in all or most circumstances. On economic matters, the populists leaned left on every single question, while Middle American Optimists did on all but one. The Moderate Right was also far likelier than others on their side to hold pro-establishment views.
There was similarly immense diversity of thought on the left. Outside of the Hard Left, all three other factions agreed with the conservative view on at least two cultural questions each. For instance, Electability Democrats and American Institutionalists believe in robust funding of polices budgets, while both groups as well as the Young and Disillusioned favor trans athletes competing on sports teams that match their sex. The Young and Disillusioned also leaned slightly rightward on four of five economic issues, and American Institutionalists agreed with the “hard work” thesis and believe that some inequality is acceptable in the country’s economic system. Most left-leaning groups also hold dour views of politicians. The Young and Disillusioned have similar views of journalists and also possess more isolationist attitudes.
All this reinforces something that TLP has been highlighting for some time: Americans are a complicated bunch, and efforts to reduce everyone on one side to a monolith whose members all think the same way are misguided and unproductive and contribute to our never-ending doom spiral of polarization. Though each side’s flank may pack a big punch, they are nowhere close to a majority. Anyone hoping to turn the temperature down in American politics and see our fellow citizens once more as individuals who form their own opinions—ones that may occasionally even deviate from their own side—would do well to digest Echelon’s research and insights.
Echelon’s survey was conducted between June 12 and 17, so the respondents were likely reacting to the Trump administration’s latest moves on immigration, which they increasingly disapprove of.
I am a bit skeptical about the economic questions and how much true agreement there is. When $ was put on environmental issues the vast majority was not willing to pay much attention all.
Yes Americans are a complicated bunch and, on the political spectrum, come in many diverse shades and hues of Red, Blue and even purple. When has that not been true, especially during the past 60 years and probably just as true, if not more so, during the nation's founding and infancy.
It's precisely why our Framers, possessing a collective wisdom far exceeding today's social and political scientists and pollsters, seem to have understood that a constitutional republic is only as legitimate, strong and representative as a majority of eligible citizens willingness to coalesce and compromise in support of it, and that remains just as true today as the numbers, gender, race and age of voters has fortunately widened.
So while both major parties have almost always experienced factional in-fighting, their sharpest and seemingly irreconcilable divergence remains between the paries. And in 2025, that is conspicuously a bigger threat to the Democratic Party's future viability, with a full 2 out of 3 likely voters expressing a loss of confidence and trust in the Left-tilting party's ability and competency to govern.