Not red or blue: America’s politically homeless middle
America has a homeless problem, but not the unhoused.
It’s the politically homeless, and new polling shows there are more of them than those who comfortably identify as Democratic or Republican. They’re the Democrats who think public safety and a secure border are important. They’re the Republicans who think the government should play a role in healthcare.
Pew Research Center polled more than 10,000 American adults from Nov. 17 to 30, 2025, asking them a set of 30 questions about government, economics, immigration, elected officials and other issues. The newly released report is the ninth iteration of Pew’s “Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology,” first published nearly 40 years ago.
Other media reporting on the polling has interpreted the groupings as insight into how voters will approach the upcoming election. Academics who specialize in polling and political methodology warn not only about the categories’ fuzzy boundaries but also that this is a simple snapshot of a complex electorate.
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More Americans now say they don’t fit in either political party than say they do.
“While the people in the core of each cluster define it, there are respondents on the ‘edges’ who might have fallen into another cluster if a few other questions had been asked, or not asked, or if they had been feeling differently when they took the survey,” Morris Fiorina, Wendt Family professor of political science and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, told Straight Arrow.
Pew creates new groups with each new report. Five years ago, many members of the “No Apologies Right” would have fallen into the “Populist Right” category, for instance.
“I think the report is helpful to a point, but the reality is the electoral system in the US means voters have two choices and so differentiating groups at too fine grained a level, while interesting, does not necessarily help explain voting,” James Druckman, Martin Brewer Anderson professor of political science at the University of Rochester, told Straight Arrow.
The new political camps
The latest polling splits the thousands of respondents into nine political camps.
At the left end of the spectrum lie “Leftward Progressives,” the youngest group that supports only Democratic candidates despite holding a lot of skepticism for the party. Three-quarters of this group say they’re “extremely comfortable” with transgender athletes competing against others who don’t match their sex at birth. No other cohort cleared 25%.
The party-first “Loyal Liberals” don’t have the same economic revolutionary streak as their younger comrades but do share their progressive views and stress the U.S. role in international relations.
Anchoring the opposite end are the “No Apologies Right.” The largely white, male cohort is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again movement. America first, closed borders, strong military, and let the rest of the world figure out their problems. This faction leads the push against DEI and feels that white people are treated unfairly.
Closely aligned are the “Faith First Conservatives.” This group runs parallel to the No Apologies Right but prioritizes social issues aligned with Christian values. Abortion and same-sex marriage opposition anchor them solely in the GOP camp.
The middle
Pew considers those four archetypes to be solidly in Republican red and Democratic blue camps. The rest find themselves in shades of purple.
The “Unconventional Right” shares GOP views on immigration enforcement and DEI, but breaks with the party on issues such as same-sex marriage, gun control, and the social safety net. This group also has a more favorable view of abortion rights, which runs counter to the Republican Party platform.
The “Pragmatic and Polite Right” has a particular disdain for the smashmouth politics of many contemporary Republicans. They agree with the GOP on their conservative fiscal views, but make a sharp break on social issues like race and see diversity as a strength.
The largest group is the “Order and Opportunity Left.” These voters hold views on public safety that are almost Republican. They “back the blue” and want borders secure, but they skew left in their view that government should be larger and more involved. They also largely suspect capitalism is inherently unfair.
The “Left-Out Left” looks like your disillusioned college roommate. More than anything, this group sees both parties as unhelpful. They’re young, working class, and hold moderately left-leaning views, but sharply recoil at the thought of transgender athletes in women’s sports.
If you still can’t identify with any of these profiles and would rather talk about sports than politics, you’re a card-carrying member of the “Tuned-Out Middle.” They’re just as likely to identify as Democrats as they are Republicans. None of the hot-button political issues gets them worked up, as evidenced by their 32% voter turnout in 2024.
Interested in where you land? Take the quiz.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
