Poll: Politically conservative number up

PRINCETON, N.J., June 15 (UPI) -- The number of Americans saying they are politically conservative rose slightly so far this year, aligning it to the 2004 level, Gallup Poll results indicate.

Forty percent of Americans polled described their political views as conservative, 35 percent as moderate and 21 percent as liberal, poll results released Monday indicated.

The slight increase in conservatism since 2008, returns it to a level last seen in 2004, the Princeton, N.J., pollster said.

The percentage of people identifying themselves as liberal is in line with findings so far in the 2000s, and up from the 1990s.

The majority of Republicans -- 73 percent -- call themselves conservatives, the survey indicated. The major divisions among self-defining Democrats was between moderates with 40 percent and liberals with 38 percent.

Twenty-two percent of Democrats identified themselves as conservative, compared with 3 percent of Republicans identifying themselves as liberal, the results indicated.

Results for the annual compilations are based on aggregated Gallup Poll surveys of adults in 10 interviews from January through May. Sample sizes for the annual compilations range from approximately 10,000 to approximately 40,000. The margin of error is 1 percentage point.