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YouGov and the Economist asked Americans whether they thought 12 different policy statements were liberal, conservative, or neither.
There is broad consensus that some of the phrases are liberal, such as "Same-sex marriage should be legal" (71% say liberal vs. 7% saying conservative) and "Taxes should be raised on the wealthy" (66% vs. 10%). Other phrases are identified as conservative by similar margins, such as "Illegal immigrants should be deported" (71% say conservative vs. 9% saying liberal) and "Military spending should be increased" (59% vs. 11%).
Other phrases produce less consensus on how to classify them. 38% of Americans say "The U.S. should provide weapons to Ukraine" is a liberal statement, much higher than the 13% who say it's a conservative statement — but only a little above the 30% who say it's neither liberal nor conservative. Among Republicans who say they're "MAGA Republicans," 48% say this is a liberal statement vs. 39% who say it's either conservative or neither; among Republicans who say they're not MAGA Republicans, 32% say it's liberal and 52% say it's either conservative or neither.
The most divisive of the 12 is the statement, "People should be allowed to express unpopular opinions." 33% of Americans say that's a liberal view, 25% that it's a conservative view, and 27% that it's neither.
Liberals and conservatives don't always agree on which statements are liberal or conservative. Sometimes, what looks conservative to most liberals doesn't look that way to most conservatives. For example, among liberals, 70% say "Spending should be cut on Social Security" is a conservative statement, while 6% say it's a liberal statement — a net difference of 64 points. But among conservatives, only 36% say cutting Social Security spending is conservative, while 24% say it's liberal — a difference of 12 points.
The opposite split can also occur: Something can look conservative to most conservatives while most liberals don't consider it conservative. That happens with the statement, "The federal budget should be balanced." 73% of conservatives say this is a conservative statement, 67 points more than the 7% of conservatives who say this is a liberal statement. Liberals, in contrast, are 13 points more likely to say this is a liberal statement than a conservative one (32% vs. 19%).
Other statements with big liberal-conservative gaps in ideological perception are "The government should see to it that everyone has a job and a good standard of living" and "The environment should be protected against pollution." Both liberals and conservatives are most likely to say these are liberal statements, but far larger shares of liberals than conservatives do so.
One caveat to keep in mind with these poll results is that the liberal/conservative framework it used to categorize these statements is not universal. The Economist and YouGov asked Americans how often they use "liberal" and "conservative" when discussing politics; people whose politics are "very liberal" or "very conservative" are much more likely to say they use these terms frequently than people who describe their political views as more moderate. Those who closely follow political news are more likely to use these terms than those who follow the news less often.
See the toplines and crosstabs for the November 28 - December 1, 2025 Economist/YouGov Poll
Methodology: The poll was conducted among 1,628 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of U.S. adult citizens. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, geographic region, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 33% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 3%.
Image: Getty (JannHuizenga)
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