Carl Cannon writes for Real Clear Politics about distinct groups of American voters.
Today, slightly more than one-fourth of registered voters in the United States have political views and social attitudes placing them in the camp of the “Resistance” — to President Trump and the Trump-era Republican Party.
This is one of the five American “tribes” identified in a sweeping new public opinion survey conducted by RealClear Opinion Research, a new service offered by RealClearPolitics. The survey of 2,463 registered voters, conducted Sept. 18-28, was overseen by John Della Volpe, co-founder of SocialSphere Inc., a public opinion and analytics firm based in Cambridge, Mass.
On the other side of the spectrum are two “tribes” of Trump voters, roughly evenly divided, which together make up another quarter of the electorate. One of these groups (12 percent) is the Trump base — the “Make America Great Again” crowd that attends his rallies and idolizes his brand of conservative populism. The other (14 percent) consists of traditional Republicans with less edgy views on issues ranging from trade to immigration to race relations.
A fourth group, which Della Volpe has dubbed “The Detached,” is even harder to peg. This segment is the youngest of the five, and the most male. They tend to be disillusioned, even disgusted, by party politics, and represent 24 percent of registered voters in the United States.
A fifth cohort, the “Independent Blues,” is the most pivotal group. In 2016 they cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton by a 12-percentage-point margin, and their skepticism toward Republicans has only grown in the ensuing two years.