Definition
The Ideology Conservative Score predicts how likely a person is to identify as politically conservative.
Technical Details
The model was built from the following survey question:
Which of the following labels best describes your current political ideology?
- Liberal
- Moderate
- Conservative
The Ideology Conservative Score was trained on polling data from the Summer 2025 Murmuration poll. We collected 7,721 responses online from registered voters in July and August 2025. The survey used stratified random sampling to ensure national representativeness across age, race, gender, partisanship, education and geography.
The model was trained using gradient-boosted decision trees. Model features were drawn from the Atlas by Murmuration dataset, which includes demographic (age, race, gender, etc.), commercial, geographic, and vote history information for all registered voters nationally.
Three separate classifications models were built to predict the likelihood of an individual responding liberal, moderate, or conservative ideology. After model predictions were made, scores were normalized so that for each individual, the sum of their liberal, moderate, and conservative scores is 100.
We validated the model's accuracy using a held-out set of 1,524 polling respondents (20% of the original survey sample) whose data was not used during model development. Among individuals with scores in the top 20% of the Ideology Conservative Score, 69% are actually conservative, making them 134% more likely to report that they are conservative than the average voter. At the other end of the distribution, individuals in the bottom 20% of the Ideology Conservative Score are 88% less likely than average to have a conservative ideology.
The model achieved a test set AUC of 0.83, demonstrating strong discriminative ability in identifying conservative voters. In held-out test data, the model correctly distinguished between conservative and moderate/liberal voters at rates significantly above baseline.
Use Cases
The Ideology Conservative Score can be used in a variety of ways when building a campaign strategy and planning voter engagement. It can be used independently or in conjunction with other scores. Below are a few examples for how partners could use this score:
- Primary Election Targeting: In heavily Republican geographies where the primary winner often becomes the de facto general election winner, this score helps identify voters aligned with specific candidates. For example, in a Republican primary with a more conservative candidate and a moderate candidate, partners supporting the less conservative candidate can combine lower Ideology Conservative Scores (scores of 13 and below) with low Partisan Scores (Partisan Scores below 20) to target voters most likely to support their candidate. This is particularly valuable when issue scores don't differentiate candidates within the Republican primary field.
- Building Cross-Partisan Coalitions on Specific Issues: Partners working on issues that may have bipartisan or conservative support (such as certain criminal justice reforms, government efficiency, or local ballot initiatives) can use this score to identify conservative voters who might be receptive to their messaging. By filtering for voters with high Ideology Conservative Scores (scores of 36 and above) and low Partisan Scores (scores of 20 and below), partners can focus their outreach on conservative voters who align with their position on specific issues, even if those voters typically support Republican candidates.
- Understanding Opposition and Refining Targeting: In progressive campaigns, this score can help partners understand which voters are unlikely to be persuaded and should be excluded from persuasion universes. By identifying voters with very high Ideology Conservative Scores (scores of 36 and above), partners can focus their limited resources on more persuadable audiences. This allows for more efficient resource allocation by avoiding outreach to voters who are highly unlikely to support progressive candidates or causes.
- Within-Party Voter Education: In Republican-leaning areas, partners can use this score alongside the Ideology Moderate Score to segment Republican voters by ideology. For example, when working on issues where moderate and conservative Republicans may differ, partners can identify high Ideology Conservative Score voters for targeted messaging that speaks to conservative values, while developing different approaches for moderate Republicans. This allows for more nuanced communication that meets voters where they are ideologically.
Targeting Table
The table below shows the score values associated with each decile to help you more easily target using the Ideology Conservative Score nationally. Note: these score cutoffs may be different in your local districts.
| To target the top... | Set the minimum score value as... |
| 10% | 61 |
| 20% | 50 |
| 30% | 36 |
| 40% | 29 |
| 50% | 23 |
| 60% | 18 |
| 70% | 13 |
| 80% | 9 |
| 90% | 6 |
| 100% | 1 |