American Politics Test

The American National Election Studies (ANES) has tracked the political opinions, social attitudes, and voting behavior of the American electorate for many decades. Following the 2024 national election cycle, researchers analyzed 83 distinct policy questions from the ANES survey to determine how public viewpoints naturally cluster. A factor analysis established that 73 of these questions load cleanly onto eight fundamental dimensions of public policy debate. This assessment, Eight Dimensions of American Politics (ANES), presents these standardized items to evaluate how your specific policy preferences align with the contemporary American ideological spectrum.

The instrument evaluates eight distinct facets of political outlook. Risk Regulation measures whether you favor government intervention on collective risks, such as climate initiatives, public health measures, and corporate oversight, or prefer a less regulated approach. Redistribution examines your stance on public spending, universal healthcare, welfare services, and government assistance versus individual financial responsibility. Moral Tradition captures your views on evolving social norms, including abortion access, family structures, and LGBTQ+ equality. Race and Gender measures whether you attribute disparities to systemic discrimination or personal effort. Immigration reflects preferences on border security, legal immigration levels, and integration pathways. Hawkishness assesses support for military spending, defense readiness, and foreign assertiveness. Finally, Government Distrust gauges your overall confidence in federal officials and processes, while Rule by Experts examines whether you prefer important decisions to be managed by technical specialists, business leaders, or elected representatives.

Research analyzing the 2024 ANES dataset reveals an important pattern in how these eight dimensions relate to overall ideology. Six of the dimensions—Risk Regulation, Redistribution, Moral Tradition, Race and Gender, Immigration, and Hawkishness—track the standard left-right divide very closely, showing strong correlations with party identification and minimal overlap between party medians. In contrast, Government Distrust and Rule by Experts function largely independently of traditional ideology. Skepticism toward government authority and appetite for technocratic governance are widespread across both major parties. This finding demonstrates that the specific issues that polarize partisan political contests and the broader questions that divide the American public are not identical.

Your results feature population comparison markers that illustrate how your scores align with the broader American public, as well as distinct subgroups of Democrats, independents, and Republicans. These markers are calculated directly from published 2024 ANES sample distributions, which surveyed between 4,161 and 4,673 US adults per dimension. While these benchmarks provide an empirical point of comparison against real national survey data, they represent estimated sample distributions rather than validated percentile rankings of your individual character or beliefs.

This assessment is provided strictly for educational and informational purposes. It is not a clinical measure, diagnostic evaluation, or personality inventory, and it is not intended to provide a moral ranking of political outlooks or policy preferences. Positions across all eight dimensions reflect differing policy perspectives rather than psychological health or virtue. The test is based on the Eight Dimensions of American Politics (ANES) research, but it is entirely independent and not affiliated with the American National Election Studies, the University of Michigan, Stanford University, or any related institution.

References

• American National Election Studies. (2025). ANES 2024 Time Series Study Full Release [Dataset and documentation]. August 8, 2025 version. www.electionstudies.org
• Treier, S., & Hillygus, D. S. (2009). The nature of political ideology in the contemporary electorate. Public Opinion Quarterly, 73(4), 679–703.
• Feldman, S., & Johnston, C. (2014). Understanding the determinants of political ideology: Implications of structural complexity. Political Psychology, 35(3), 337–358.