Poll: Number Of Liberal Americans Hits All-Time High In 2013

The percentage of Americans who describe themselves as “liberal” has reached an all-time high, according a Gallup poll released Friday.

The poll finds that 23 percent of Americans self-identify as liberal, the highest such number since Gallup began measuring ideology in the current format in 1992.

That figure, while rising, still lags far behind the number of self-identified conservatives; a 38 percent plurality of Americans say they are conservative, while 34 percent self-identify as moderate.

Gallup Poll

The rise in liberal identification has been led by Democrats — 43 percent of Democrats now consider themselves liberals, up from just 29 percent at the beginning of the George W. Bush administration in 2000. The number of self-described moderate Democrats has fallen 8 percent since 2000, and the number of conservative Democrats has fallen 6 percent.

Gallup Poll Democrats

In what may be a contributing factor to the nation’s increasingly polarized politics, the number of self-described moderates has steadily fallen over the past two decades; 34 percent now use the term to describe their politics, representing an all-time low in the poll.

Thsi is the second Gallup poll this week to illustrate the nation’s changing political attitudes; a survey released Wednesday found that fewer Americans now self-identify as Republicans than at any point in the past three decades.

Start your day with National Memo Newsletter

Know first.

The opinions that matter. Delivered to your inbox every morning

{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}