Americans at the ends of the ideological spectrum are the most active in national politics
U.S. adults who fall on either end of the ideological spectrum are more active than other Americans across several measures of political engagement, from voting to posting about politics on social media to donating to campaigns. Americans who hold less consistently liberal or conservative views, by contrast, tend to be less engaged on these topics, as Pew Research Center studies have long found. Here are some recent findings that illustrate this dynamic.
This analysis relies on findings from a variety of Pew Research Center surveys and studies. Because these reports were produced at different times, some of them measured ideology in different ways. For more information about each of these reports, read the links included in the analysis. For information about how the political typology groups were constructed, read the report's methodology.
- Several Center analyses have found that a small share of Twitter users produce the majority of content on the site. The Twitter conversation about national politics is also driven by a small number of prolific users, according to a 2019 analysis. Some 55% of highly active political tweeters described themselves as either very liberal or very conservative, based on an 11-point measure of ideology where scores of 0 (most conservative) to 2 were defined as very conservative, and scores of 8-10 were defined as very liberal. Among nonpolitical tweeters, 28% also chose one of these more polarized options.
In addition to being at the ends of the political spectrum, prolific political tweeters were especially likely to report engaging in political activities. In the year prior to the survey (a time period that included the 2018 midterm election), 34% of this group reported attending a political rally or event, while 57% said they contacted an elected official and 38% said they contributed money to a political campaign.
