The numbers suggest that nearly a third of adult Americans constitute the left's natural constituency - those described by Pew as "liberals" and so-called "disadvantaged Democrats".
The liberals were the single largest of the eight political types identified in the survey. They were estimated to represent 17% of the voting age population, roughly 37 million Americans, and formed the largest part of the Democratic base. The poll describes them as being "the most opposed to an assertive foreign policy, the most secular, (the ones who) take the most liberal views on social issues such as homosexuality, abortion, and censorship", the most highly educated, most urban, most pro-environment, and most pro-immigration. They were also the most educated and second youngest of all the groups, and had the highest average income of those describing themselves as Democrats.
The "disadvantaged Democrats" were defined as the "least financially secure of all the groups" and also the "most anti-business" and the one "most strongly supportive of organized labor". According to Pew, an estimated one-third of low-income DP supporters are black, and minorities in general comprise an unspecified but "substantial proportion" of the party's base. As a percentage of the overall adult population, the survey estimated they numbered nearly 10% of eligible voters, or 22 million .
The third major Democratic constituency, "socially conservative Democrats", were "less extreme...than core Republican groups" on social issues, but, at the end of 2004, most opposed gay marriage and homosexuality and were more religious and less strongly opposed to the war in Iraq than other two groups. Nearly a third of conservative Democratic respondents were also black, indicating the conflicting pressures which the DP black congressional caucus is subject to from its own community. Older women are also prominent among right-wing Democrats. The "social conservatives" in the DP were estimated to outnumber the other group of "disadvantaged" lower-income Democrats to their left but trailed the liberals at the base of the party.
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Some US leftists dispute that liberal and disadvantaged Democrats are the core constituencies which they should be trying to influence. They are especially hostile to liberal Democrats from their own milieu, and tend instead to look to independent voters and largely apolitical Americans as the most promising sources of potential left-wing growth. What does the Pew survey tell us about these independent and apolitical types, traditionally favoured by anarchists and increasingly attractive to US Marxists frustrated by their limited success in the electoral arena and the politics of the DP leadership? How realistic is it to expect they will become the base of a new third party which will outflank the Democrats from the left?
Pew identifies the two most politically alienated groups of Americans as the "disaffecteds" and "bystanders", the main difference between them seeming to be their degree of political alienation.
96% of the "bystanders" - the youngest (and, except for the liberals, the least religious) of all groups surveyed - did not participate in the 2004 election. One in five of these were Hispanic, but much may have changed in this group since the last election and subsequent immigrant rallies. Only about a quarter of the "disaffected" population abstained from voting. But Pew reported that survey respondents from this group were still "deeply cynical about government...alienated from politics (with) little interest in keeping up with news about politics and government..." They nevertheless remain "deeply concerned about immigration and environmental policies, particularly to the extent that they affect jobs." Among "disaffected" voters, Bush outpolled Kerry 42% to 21%.
What both of these currently apolitical groups share are low levels of income and education. 70% of the "disaffected" have not attended college (51% of Americans have) and 24% of the "bystanders" have not completed high school. Both are found more in rural and suburban areas and in the southern and western states and tend to be predominantly male.
The groups in which some leftists vest the most hope therefore are the least skilled segment of the US working class whose members are the most vulnerable to falling into the "lumpenproletariat". Between them, they represent an estimated 20% of the adult population. The politically disaffected anti-immigrant young white males from smaller centres, in particular, are as apt to become the shock troops of a right-wing movement as to move to the left of the DP in a social crisis.
The other identifiable group outside of the two party system is what Pew calls the "upbeats", more familiarly known as "yuppies". They're upbeat because they have benefited most from recent economic growth. They're overwhelmingly white (87%), "relatively young", "well educated", typically married and living in the suburbs, and "among the wealthiest typology groups".
Representing an estimated 11% of the electorate, the newly affluent mostly identify themselves as "independents". Whileh they have the same class location as many liberal Democrats, they are to the right of them politically. They have a "positive outlook on the role of business in society" and are "moderate" on social issues. They're the kind of people columnist David Brooks of the New York Times represents and writes about. While most supported the war in Iraq in 2004, they were reported then as already having "mixed views on foreign policy", so their stance on the war has also probably evolved. In 2004, 63% of this group voted for Bush and 14% for Kerry.
The other groups described in the survey are pro-Republican "enterprisers" (ie. libertarians), "social conservatives", and so-called "pro-government conservatives", whose distinct identity apart from the other two Republican groups was not clear to me .
For the typology and 2004 survey, see: http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=949
For a more recent Pew survey of US popular opinion in the last year, see: http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=312