Michael Took Pew's Political Quiz—and the Results Surprised Him

**Michael Smerconish** (0:00)
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Ditch the clowns on the left and the jokers on the right and join Michael Smerconish right here in the middle.

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This is The Smerconish Podcast for Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:00)
So gang, regular listeners know that I am a registered independent and there's a lot of data pertaining to the subject of party identification that I want to share with you, born out or linked to in today's newsletter. For example, new data from CNN backs up the company that I'm keeping. Independence have grown to 47% of the population. That's the highest share that CNN has measured in more than a decade. It also tracks with Gallup because Gallup, their end of year number for 2025 in terms of self-party identification or self-identification of party, 45%.
So CNN says 47% of Americans regard themselves as independent. Gallup says the number is 45 If 45% are independent, then what's the breakdown for Rs and for Ds? According to Gallup, that's 27% for each. And now, if you want to go deeper than just the label, I recommend to you Pew Research Center because Pew has just published a new political typology that sorts the country into nine distinct groups. It's built from a 24-question quiz. I took it last night on a cross-country flight. It was fun for me to do.
I answered questions on economy, race, immigration and government. Here's some, just a smattering of what I said about myself to give you a feel for what gave this analysis the opportunity to classify me.
I said that I favor smaller government. I said that I think very few people run for office out of a genuine wish to serve others. I said that I support capitalism. I said that I think climate change is a big deal. I said that I'm uncomfortable with open carry in public places. I said that I think the legacy of slavery still affects black people a great deal. And I said, I think religion needs to stay separate from government. Add that all up. And according to Pew, I am part of the pragmatic and polite right.
Republican-leaning but not reflexively so, conservative on economics, but more moderate on race and diversity, more frustrated with the Republican Party than are the true believers. Jocelyn Kiley is the Director of Research at Pew Research Center, where she primarily works on US public opinion about politics. And Jocelyn joins me now. Jocelyn, what do you make of that? I'm in a group that comprises 11% according to this analysis.

**Jocelyn Kiley** (3:54)
Yep. Yeah. It's very interesting. That group in particular, we've done typologies for nearly 40 years. And that group in particular is one of the more interesting ones this year.
It's a group, as you say, it tilts a little bit to the right, but it has this combination of values that really make it stand out. That makes a lot of sense. As you were going through your answers, I was guessing which group you'd end up in, and I figured it out.

**Michael Smerconish** (4:24)
Well, I couldn't be in the middle because among your nine typologies, the self-identified middle is the tuned out middle. I'm like the tuned in middle. That's not going to suit me.

**Jocelyn Kiley** (4:37)
Sure. Many of these groups are in the middle in some way or another.
The pragmatic and polite right is a middle group. The order and opportunity left is a middle group. Depends on how you define the middle. The tuned out middle is really a group of people who are not engaged in politics at all, and they also happen to, when you ask them their partisanship or among the few who do vote, you find out who they voted for, they really split right down the middle. But they're really defined by not being engaged with politics.

**Michael Smerconish** (5:09)
Let me back up a step. Tell me about the big picture of this. For how long have you been doing it? What changes have you made? You meaning Pew. What changes have been made along the way, and what's the intent or the purpose?