(Week of 9/15/2012) In political science classes, professors often teach that presidential candidates move to the right or left during primary campaigns but back to the center during the general election campaign. But, at least based on the perceptions of ordinary Americans, that’s not what’s happening in this campaign. According to results from weekly Economist/YouGov Polls, Americans have become more — not less — likely to rate both President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney as ideologically extreme since the general election campaign began.
The graph below shows changing perceptions of Mitt Romney’s ideology since January, when Romney’s ideology was added as a regular question on the poll. It shows that, since January, the percentage of Americans who consider Romney to be a moderate has continuously dropped. Meanwhile, the percentage who think he is "conservative" has increased a bit (especially recently) and the percentage who think he is "very conservative" has increased dramatically, including during the late primary campaign but also over the past two months.
As for President Obama, the graph below shows changing perceptions of his ideology since 2009. While the percentage of Americans who consider him a "moderate" increased during the first half of 2011, it has since declined. Meanwhile, the percentage of American who consider him to be "very liberal" has increased, at first slowly but recently at a much quicker pace.
Economist/YouGov poll archives can be found here
Photo source: Press Association
