CNN's Smerconish
June 10, 2023
9:42 a.m. Eastern
MICHAEL SMERCONISH: Are Republicans winning the culture war? A new Gallup poll finds social conservatism in the U.S. at its highest level since 2012. You might be wondering: How is this possible? After all, Republicans barely won control of the House last year while Democrats performed better than expected in the Senate during the midterm elections. But new state proposals related to transgender issues, abortion, drug use, and the teaching of gender sexuality in schools is suggesting America may be inching toward the right.
And, according to Gallup, 38 percent of Americans say they're "very conservative" or "conservative" on social issues. That's a jump from the previous two years when the number was at 33 and 30 percent, respectively. At the same time, Americans sharing "very liberal" or "liberal social views" fell from 34 to 29 percent.
Perhaps the most interesting finding in this survey is the rise of socially conservative views over the past two years seen among nearly all demographics, including millennials. Here to explain the trend is editor-in-chief of Gallup and host of the Gallup podcast, Mohamed Younis. Mohamed, what's driving this, according to your interpretation?
MOHAMED YOUNIS, GALLUP EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Really two things, Michael. Numerically, it's about Republicans really owning their conservative identity. We see now a jump from 60 to 74 percent of Republicans identifying as conservative in the past two years. But, socially speaking, contextually, this is happening at a time when, in the same survey, Americans are at a new high of describing moral values in the country as "poor," and 83 percent describing it as "getting worse." And I think you nailed it.
The elephant in the room really are those transgender rights issues and gender-affirming care. We asked about that in this poll. Right now, Michael, 55 percent of Americans describe changing one's gender of birth as "morally wrong." And that is a really important statistic to keep in mind -- 43 percent say it's "morally acceptable" -- 69 percent of Americans say that, when it comes to things like sports and competition, one should only be allowed to compete with people of their birth gender -- not their gender identity.