This Is Why America Keeps Getting More Conservative

[FarCenter]

7. It looks like this Gallup poll data was based on self-identification

Here is the Gallup data http://www.gallup.com/poll/125066/State-States.aspx

It also included "leans Republican" and "leans Democrat". It appears that there is fairly good agreement between "leans Republican" and "conservative". However, "leans Democrat" is generally much higher than "liberal" numbers, so "leans Democrat" must include part of the population that identify themselves as "moderate".

"liberal" only breaks 30% in DC and Massachusetts, and is a majority nowhere.

"conservative" exceeds 40% in a great many states, and is a majority in four.

Here is also a link to the Atlantic article, which the Business Insider article repeats, with graphs showing how conservative identification varies with income, education and religion.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2012/02/why-america-keeps-getting-more-conservative/1162/