{"id":48461,"date":"2015-11-23T00:09:46","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T05:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2015\/11\/23\/appendix-a-why-partisans-include-leaners\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:47:45","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:47:45","slug":"appendix-a-why-partisans-include-leaners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/politics\/2015\/11\/23\/appendix-a-why-partisans-include-leaners\/","title":{"rendered":"Appendix A: Why partisans include \u2018leaners\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Discussions of partisans throughout this report combine both those who identify with a party and those who lean toward one of the two major parties. Though Americans increasingly say they are politically independent<\/a>, most of those who do not affiliate with a party lean Republican or Democratic. These partisan \u201cleaners\u201d tend to have attitudes and behaviors that are very similar to those of partisans, a dynamic long observed by political<\/a> scientists<\/a> and other political<\/a> observers<\/a>, as well as in prior Pew Research Center studies (see Appendix B<\/a> of Pew Research Center\u2019s 2014 study of Political Polarization in the American Public<\/a> for more examples). In many cases, the attitudes of \u201call independents\u201d can be misleading, since this tends to obscure real partisan differences within the group.<\/p>\n\n

This is the case when it comes to attitudes about the federal government, evaluations of the government\u2019s job and views of the role government should play in key areas.<\/p>\n\n

On many evaluations of government<\/a>, independents who lean to the Democratic Party differ greatly from those who lean to the Republican Party; moreover, leaners have very similar views as partisans of their party.<\/p>\n\n

\"Appendix<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

For example, at least six-in-ten Democratic identifiers (69%) and leaners (62%) say the government should do more to solve problems, compared with no more than a third of Republican leaners (31%) and identifiers (23%).<\/p>\n\n

A similar pattern exists when it comes to overall evaluations of government performance: 33% of Democratic identifiers, along with 26% of leaners rate the government\u2019s job of running its programs as excellent or good, while just one-in-ten Republican leaners (11%) and identifiers (10%) say the same.<\/p>\n\n

And on evaluations of the performance and role of the federal government in specific areas<\/a>, the views of leaners closely map those of partisans, and are distinctly different from those who lean toward the other party. For instance, about four-in-ten of both Republican leaners (42%) and identifiers (39%) say the government is doing a good job ensuring access to health care; by comparison, 75% of Democratic identifiers and 72% of Democratic leaners say this. And while roughly a third of Republicans (32%) and GOP leaners (36%) say the government should play a major role in health care, among Democrats (85%) and Democratic leaners (79%) those proportions rise to around eight-in-ten.<\/p>\n\n

\"Appendix<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Though Democratic leaners are somewhat less likely than identifiers to evaluate the government positively when it comes to the economy, the 9-percentage-point difference in these views (61% vs. 72%, respectively) is far more modest than the 27-point difference between Republican leaners and Democratic leaners.<\/p>\n\n

In each of these cases, reporting on a single \u201cindependent\u201d category would have provided a contrast with Republicans and Democrats (those data points are plotted in the middle of the above graphics). But, since more than three-quarters of independents lean toward a party (to date in 2015, 37% lean to the GOP, 41% lean Democratic and 22% do not lean to either party), reporting on an independent group that is primarily the combination of these two dramatically different groups would be misleading; these are two groups that have little in common with each other, and far more in common with self-identified partisans.<\/p>\n\n

In some cases throughout this report, those who lean neither to the Republican Party nor to the Democratic Party are discussed when they differ markedly from other groups.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Discussions of partisans throughout this report combine both those who identify with a party and those who lean toward one of the two major parties. Though Americans increasingly say they are politically independent, most of those who do not affiliate with a party lean Republican or Democratic. 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