Where the ducks are?

Since the 2024 election, a lot of people have said that the way for the Democrats to win is to move towards the center.   A few days ago, Thomas Edsall had a column in which said it would be hard to do that, and they might not gain many votes even if they did.   I think he made a strong case on the first point, but not on the second.  Edsall started by observing that in the 1990s, 55% of Democrats had not attended college and 21% were college graduates, and now the numbers have reversed:  25% no college and 45% college graduates.  He then said "These widely recognized changes in levels of educational attainment have coincided with an ideological shift."  In 1994, 25% of Democrats said they were conservative, 48% said they were moderate, and 25% said they were liberal; in 2024, it was 9%, 34%, and 55%.  

It's true that the educational shift "coincided" with an ideological shift, but the way he puts it suggests that the educational shift caused the ideological shift.  Here is the correlation between party (strong Democrat.... Strong Republican), and ideology (extremely liberal....extremely conservative) in the GSS:

It's consistently higher among college graduates, so the change in educational composition has made some difference.  But it's increased in all educational groups:  the correlation among people with no college today is about as large as the correlation among college graduates was in the 1970s.  But this just involves what people call themselves:  what if we look at opinions?  The GSS also has a question that starts "Some people think that the government in Washington is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and private businesses. Others disagree and think that the government should do even more to solve our country's problems" and asks people to put themselves on a five-point scale.  This is a pretty good measure of conservative vs. liberal principles.  

It/s also increased for all educational groups, but the increase is generally slower than the party/ideology correlation.

Finally, here's the correlation between self-rated ideology and views on the scope of government:

Again, an upward trend for all educational groups, but even smaller (especially for people without college degrees).  

So it seems that some of the "ideological shift" is just a matter of people learning the correct ideological label for their party.  The rising association between ideology and party also has implications for Republicans and independents as well as Democrats.  According to the GSS, in the 1970s 20% of Republicans described themselves as liberals, 35% moderates, and 46% conservatives; in the Trump era (2018-22) it was 5%, 27%, and 68%.  But as Democrats became more liberal and Republicans became more conservative, independents became more moderate:  they went from 28/45/27 in the 1970s to 16/64/20 in the Trump era.  Another way to look at it is that moderate independents went from 6% of the population in the 1970s to 10% in the Obama era (2008-16) to 14% in the Trump era.  This suggests that the gains to moderation might actually be larger than before--there are more people who are completely up for grabs.