Education and Political Affiliation: An Examination of Shifting Trends

This article explores the intricate relationship between education levels and political party affiliations in America, while also considering the influence of demographic factors. Political analysts often highlight voter turnout and voting patterns across different demographic groups, including individuals with varying levels of education. Political beliefs likely reflect our ethical values and our empirical beliefs, both of which might be altered by intelligence.

The Core Relationship: Education and Party Affiliation

The study aims to investigate how education levels (college-educated and non-college-educated) influence political party affiliation, considering the impact of control variables such as gender, race, and age. Comprehensive findings reveal a significant relationship between party affiliation and education level, indicating a higher likelihood of college-educated individuals leaning towards the Democratic party. This research holds significance for political campaigns seeking to identify and target specific voting blocs for effective campaigning and advertising strategies.

The research was conducted utilizing the National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS) dataset sourced from the Pew Research Center to investigate relationships among variables. Methodologically, the study employed various analytical techniques, including frequency tables, crosstabs, bi-variate analysis, chi-square tests, multivariate analysis, and multiple regression.

Education as a Predictor

The Republican Party now holds an advantage over the Democratic Party among voters who do not have a bachelor’s degree. By comparison, the Democratic Party has a lead among those with a college degree. This pattern is relatively recent. In the past, Democrats had a double-digit advantage in affiliation over Republicans among voters without a college degree. Voters with postgraduate degrees are even more Democratic than those with bachelor’s degrees.

Race and Education Intersect

White voters are much more likely than those in other racial and ethnic groups to associate with the Republican Party. Hispanic and Asian voters tilt more Democratic. The Republican Party's advantage among White voters has held for more than a decade.

White voters with a bachelor’s degree are closely divided between associating with the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. In contrast, there are no meaningful differences in the partisan leanings of Hispanic voters with and without bachelor’s degrees. Two-thirds of Asian voters with a college degree align with the Democratic Party; associate with the Republican Party. The partisan balance among Asian voters with a college degree has remained largely the same over our last two decades of surveys.

Among Hispanic voters, men and women associate with the Democrats. Men and women among Asian voters identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party. Among Black and Hispanic voters, there are only modest differences in partisanship across the combination of gender and education. In both groups, there are no significant differences between men with and without college degrees, or between their women counterparts. As recently as 15 years ago, there were sizable gender gaps in partisanship among both college and non-college White voters. Today, there is no gender gap in partisanship among non-college White voters, while there is a gender gap among college graduate White voters.

Intelligence, Socioeconomic Factors, and Political Beliefs

Although IQ is known to be associated with political belief, it is not known why this is the case. The relationship between intelligence and political belief could be confounded or mediated by socioeconomic factors and environmental factors more broadly. We might believe intelligence directly changes political beliefs. Intelligence is related to greater general knowledge, knowledge of economics and financial literacy. Moreover, intelligence may be related to subjective values, as it shows correlations with patience, openness, “emotional intelligence” and moral judgement in the Defining Issues Test.

Onraet et al. suggested that the use of stereotypes and socially conservative beliefs function as heuristics, utilizing fewer cognitive resources than thinking about social issues on a case-by-case base. The relationship between intelligence and political belief could alternatively be accounted for by socioeconomic mediation. Education, which may be in a reciprocal causal relationship with IQ scores, has been found to be associated with liberal values and support for capitalism. Another plausible mediator of IQ’s relationship with political beliefs is income. Popular economic models characterise voter preference as a function of income, in turn derived from exogenous differences in human capital. Human capital in turn is partly composed of intelligence. Longitudinal designs support the notion that income causes right-wing views.

Environmental Influences

The relationship between intelligence and political belief may also be confounded by environmental factors. Twin studies of political belief have established a genetic component to political beliefs, but they have also established the role of environment. Meta-analysis of results from twin pairs indicates a significant shared environmental effect, compared to for the genetic variance and for the non-shared environment. Adoption studies have also been able to identify an effect of the shared environment.

Disentangling Intelligence from Confounding Factors

Various approaches have been used to disentangle the effect of intelligence from confounds and its direct effect from its total effect, mediated by socioeconomic variables. The simplest approach has been to control for possible mediators and confounds in linear regression. A further improvement is to use a within-family design, studying whether the sibling with higher cognitive ability also has more liberal views. This removes any confounding arising from the shared environment, including the common effect of transmission of political values from parents. Ahlskog and Oskarsson studied the relationship between IQ and political values in a sample of around Swedish siblings, finding the effect sizes to be similar before and after using family fixed effects.

Studies using family fixed effects can exclude confounding from the shared environment, but not the nonshared environment-that is, environmental factors unique to each sibling. We study the relationship between cognitive ability and political beliefs with a novel approach using polygenic scores. A polygenic score is a DNA-based predictor of someone’s trait, calculated as a linear combination of the estimated effect of alleles. When controlling for parental polygenic scores, the scores of the offspring are not confounded by environmental variation, since genes are randomly and independently inherited from parents via the process of Mendelian segregation. This allows polygenic scores to act as instruments for mental abilities. This exclusion of environmental confounds provides an advantage in causal identification compared to regressing political beliefs on cognitive abilities. This approach of controlling for parental polygenic scores has been used in various other papers. As of writing, one published paper has found a polygenic score can predict political beliefs. Ahlskog found a polygenic score for educational attainment had a positive effect on social liberalism, using family fixed effects. This was interpreted as evidence for education affecting political beliefs. We focus specifically on the psychological trait of intelligence, measured more precisely, with the cognitive performance polygenic score from Becker et al.

The Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS)

The Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS) recruited families between and. State birth records and records from adoption agencies allowed for a representative sample of adoptive and biological families to be recruited. Statistics used in this study were taken at intake or follow-up lasting from -. The sample and political-attitude scales have previously been used and described in Willoughby et al. All biological offspring were of European ancestry, whilst adopted offspring where either European or East Asian-born in South Korea, to be specific. Comparison of current participants with nonparticipants on intake measures related to socioeconomic status and cognitive ability revealed no substantial attrition effects (see supplementary materials of Willoughby, Giannelis, et al.).

The adoptees were placed in their families before their second birthdays, implying there can be negligible selective placement. In the international adoptions, parents had little information about the children that could be used to prefer some over others (McGue et al., 2007). Sacerdote has argued that there is strong reason to suppose random assignment in international adoptees. Furthermore, the polygenic scores of MCTFR adoptees do not significantly correlate with those of their adoptive parents (Willoughby, McGue, Iacono, & Lee, 2021). However, Beauchamp, Schmitz, McGue and Lee have regressed polygenic scores for educational attainment and cognitive performance on large range of family characteristics in the adoptive sample.

Measuring Political Attitudes and Cognitive Ability

We employ five scales about political attitudes that were given to parents and offspring during their third follow-up assessment. These were measures of political orientation, authoritarianism, egalitarianism, social liberalism and fiscal conservatism. We also include one social-attitude scale-religiousness. Political orientation was assessed with the single item “What is your political orientation?” on a - scale ranging from “extremely conservative” to “extremely liberal.” Authoritarianism was measured using items capturing three facets of authoritarianism (subordination, aggression, and conventionalism) from Duckitt et al.’s tripartite authoritarianism-conservatism-traditionalism model. Egalitarianism was measured with items from Feldman and Steenbergen and Feldman. Religiousness was assessed with the -item religiousness scale created by Koenig et al. The scale asks about participation in and frequency of religious activities. items were used to measure socialism liberalism and six measuring fiscal conservatism. These items were adapted from similar questions in the General Social Survey items.

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Correlations among our political scales are presented in Table . Due to the high correlations among the variables, we create a composite measure to summarise the relationship between intelligence and political opinion. Authoritarianism, egalitarianism, social liberalism and fiscal conservatism scales are combined to create a sum score called the political composite. Before summing, we change the signs of our scales so higher scores indicate left-wing views, ensuring that high composite scores indicate left-wing views too. A scale was coded as being left-wing or right-wing by its correlation with authoritarianism, which is assumed to be right-wing. Participants were assessed for their cognitive ability at intake with IQ tests. The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R; Wechsler, ) was used for participants age years and older and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R; Wechsler, ) for participants years and younger. Educational attainment was assessed using self-reported years of education. Income was assessed as self-reported gross labor income, in thousands of US dollars. Both measures were taken at follow-up three. A value of was added to income before it was then log transformed. Some individuals do not have reported educational attainment and individuals do not have a reported value of income.

Genetic Factors: Polygenic Scores

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) use regression to estimate effect sizes of genes on human traits. These genes are single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). At each loci of the genome there are either , or copies of the SNP. Multiplying a person’s number of SNPs by their effect sizes and then summing over all the loci gives us an estimate of person’s genetic value for a trait. The Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS) has been genotyped along with other cohorts from the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research (MCTFR; Miller et al., 2012), meaning we know how many copies of a SNP each participant has at half a million loci. Our polygenic scores were derived from genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics for two behavioral phenotypes; cognitive performance (CP; J. J. Lee et al., ) and educational attainment (EA; J. J. Lee et al., ). Cognitive performance refers to a score on an IQ test and is a euphemism for intelligence. Educational attainment refers to the number of years an individual has spent in education. The EA polygenic score is employed because it is trained on a large sample (N≈770,000) compared to the CP polygenic score (N≈250,000), potentially allowing for greater power. For the European subjects we use scores that were pre-calculated as part of the Polygenic Index Repository (Becker et al., ). Non-European subjects were not included in the repository, so we made polygenic scores for the Asian subjects ourselves. Of the biological and adopted siblings with the necessary variables recorded, were not genotyped.

Statistical Analysis and Controls

We run a series of regressions on our scales of political beliefs, using a range of controls and IQ or polygenic scores as explanatory variables or instruments. We adjust p-values given in the text for multiple testing across our seven traits using the Benjamini-Hochberg correction. In tables, focusing on our political composite of all traits, we do not adjust p-values for multiple correction. We standardize all continuous variables to have a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. To remove confounding by the shared environment, we can employ family fixed effects, which is the standard “within-family” design. We use this method when using an observed phenotype as an explanatory variable. However, it is not necessary when using the polygenic score as the explanatory variable. This is because an offspring’s polygenic score can be decomposed into the sum of the average parental polygenic score and a random deviation ascribable to Mendelian segregation. The second term is uncorrelated with all potential confounders and therefore equivalent to random treatment assignment. Therefore, it is sufficient to control for the average polygenic scores of the parents to remove not only confounding by the shared environment but any conceivable confounding whatsoever. This approach also provides more degrees of freedom for estimation. Notice that the offspring polygenic score, even without controlling for the parental polygenic scores, is already uncorrelated with the non-shared environment.

In some models we control for variables related to socioeconomic status, education and income. We refer to these variable as potential mediators since they could plausibly mediate the effect of intelligence. If intelligence still has an effect on political beliefs after using the controls then that suggests its total effect is not entirely mediated by education or income. However, these variables might proxy confounders, affecting both politics and intelligence simultaneously. Intelligence is measured in childhood, so income and education cannot alter the measure but only correlate with other variables which do act as confounds. In this case using the controls will simply remove a potential bias. In models using a polygenic score instead of phenotypic intelligence, these income and education should not act as confounds since environmental factors cannot alter a person’s genes. The variables could function as colliders being affected by intelligence and political beliefs simul…

Perceptions of Bias in Education

Do American public schools promote a biased political perspective-or even indoctrinate students in a certain belief system? For many Americans, their answer to this question could define their preferences for education policy. Historically, one could argue that education garnered more bipartisan agreement than most other policy areas. Today, however, schools are a political battleground for a polarized electorate. There has been contention at the local, state, and national levels surrounding both oft-controversial education topics-like school choice, social studies curriculum, and LGBTQ+ issues-and more mundane areas, like teacher retention strategies.

Differing Views: Adults vs. Students

Most adults believe that America’s public schools present neutral or balanced political viewpoints. However, there are real differences by political affiliation. More than two-thirds of Republicans believe that public schools promote liberal viewpoints, while Democrats and Independents see a more neutral or balanced approach. Interestingly, high school students perceive this question differently from adults. A larger majority of students report balanced political messaging and, unlike adults, conservative and liberal students respond very similarly to one another.

Worry About Public Schools

Before the election, adults indicated that they’re worried about the direction of the nation’s public schools. Following the election, a similar majority of adults indicated worry. However, the underlying makeup of this majority reflects sharp partisan differences from before to following the election. Worry among Democrats grew significantly, from to . Worry among Republicans shrank, from to , following President Trump’s reelection.

Amid changes in federal involvement in public education, we also asked adults whether the federal government should adopt a larger or smaller role and influence in public education. On the whole, Republicans favor a smaller role ( smaller vs. larger) and Democrats a larger role ( larger vs. ). However, survey questions like these may assume that people have a fairly accurate understanding of the federal government’s role in public education. In - amid $ billion in federal ESSER stimulus funding, the federal government supplied .% of total public education revenues, up from .% in -. Despite these relatively modest proportions, on average, adults guessed the federal government provided % of education revenues. That’s . times that of a normal funding year and . times that of an extraordinary pandemic funding year.

Stepping back, our findings highlight an important disconnect between adults’ perceptions and students’ on-the-ground experiences. Adults suspect political biases in schools that many students do not see themselves. Notably, too, many adults seem to lack knowledge about the federal government’s role in education. As a result, proposed education policies may reflect current political narratives rather than realities of classroom conditions.

Confidence in Parties Handling Education

When it comes to handling education issues, voters have consistently placed more confidence in Democrats than Republicans, according to surveys conducted by The Winston Group since . Our latest survey on education issue handling, administered to registered voters earlier this month, shows this trend continues. In the last years, Republicans have tied or bested Democrats on education issue handling only three times: February (+ Republican); January , shortly after No Child Left Behind was signed into law (even); and April , in the wake of widespread Covid-induced school closures (even). But recently, other outlets have found that Republicans now have a slight edge on this traditional Democratic stronghold. In a summer poll of likely voters in congressional battleground districts, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) found that Republicans ( percent) came out ahead of Democrats ( percent) when voters were asked who they trusted more to handle issues related to schools and education. More recently, David Shor and the Democratic consulting firm Blue Rose Research have also found Republicans to have a slight advantage in trust on education.

Another really big shift was that education has gone from being basically one of the best issues for Democrats to being something that’s basically neutral now. We saw that in the Virginia gubernatorial election in . So, what’s going on here? Which party really has the advantage on education? First, the way a survey question is worded can and does have a bearing on the results. At The Winston Group, we ask voters which party they have more confidence in to handle education. But both DFER surveys asked voters who they trust to handle the issue, and their survey primed voters to focus specifically on matters of academic preparation: “Which party do you trust more to handle issues related to schools and education?” () and “Regardless of how you usually vote, which political party, the Democrats or the Republicans, do you trust to do a better job making sure public schools are preparing students for success after high school by ensuring they are teaching students to read and do math well?” ().

Second, the ways surveys define their target populations and draw their samples also influence their results. For example, we survey registered voters from across the entire country. The DFER survey instead looked at “likely voters” (a designation with many different definitions) in congressional battleground districts-or just percent of all congressional districts. The DFER survey polled registered voters in four states: Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada. Based on turnout in the general election, that survey represented about percent of the electorate, all in states that Trump won.

Finally, a closer look at the results of these surveys may reveal that they’re not so different after all. While the margins in our Winston Group surveys still favor Democrats, they have shrunk in recent years. The -point advantage Democrats hold in our most recent survey is much smaller than the margins in the s they enjoyed in -.

The Self-Sorting of College Students

Such is the level of political polarization in the nation that it’s now influencing where students want to attend college. The researchers analyzed four decades of data on million first-year college students and found that, since the s, political polarization on college campuses has grown. Schools that traditionally enrolled more liberal students have become even more liberal, while conservative-leaning colleges have become more conservative.

Ideology and Enrollment

To better understand how ideology shapes enrollment, the researchers surveyed undergraduates, presenting them with hypothetical colleges that varied in cost, type, location and political leanings of both the schools’ student bodies and the states in which they’re located. Conservative students were willing to pay more to avoid liberal classmates and more for colleges in states with fewer Democratic voters. But conservatives did not show a statistically significant preference for attending schools with more conservative students. The research says these results suggest that students are increasingly uncomfortable with political differences on campus.

As the authors note, decreased political diversity on college campuses limits opportunities for students to engage with and be challenged by different perspectives. Exposure to diverse viewpoints has long been considered a core component of the college experience, helping students sharpen their reasoning skills, question assumptions and develop empathy. A more homogenous campus, by contrast, risks reinforcing echo chambers and discouraging the kind of debate upon which democratic societies depend.

Reinforcing Divides

Political self-sorting may also reinforce geographic and demographic divides. Political identity is correlated with factors such as race, income and whether students come from urban or rural areas, and these patterns could deepen the divides that already shape where Americans live and learn.

“If colleges seek to ensure that students interact with others with opposing views,” the authors write, “our findings imply that they will need to actively work to attract a politically diverse pool of applicants and enrollees.” That is no easy task. As colleges face declining enrollment and intensifying political scrutiny, deliberate steps toward ideological diversity will require both resources - including outreach and recruitment efforts and scholarships - and political resolve. But if colleges are to remain places for open inquiry and civic preparation, campus leaders may need to make a more concerted effort to foster political diversity just as they do with racial, socioeconomic and other forms of representation.

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