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Which of four national goals respondents pick as the second priority, asked in ANES (1972-1992) and in the GSS (1993-2021) with the same four options.
AI-matched An AI model grouped these questions and mapped their answers onto shared categories, and a second AI review checked and corrected the grouping and mapping. No person has checked it: compare the question wordings and the answer mapping below before reading the lines against each other.
Latest: 26% answered “Protect freedom of speech” in GSS, 2021.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. GSS → web (2021).
Shares of people whose answer maps onto these categories (non-answers and answers outside the scale are left out), because surveys differ in whether they offer “don’t know.” Each column is one survey wave, evenly spaced rather than to scale in time; hover for exact shares.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. GSS → web (2021).
Shares of people whose answer maps onto these categories (non-answers and answers outside the scale are left out), because surveys differ in whether they offer “don’t know.” Each point is one survey wave at the middle of its field period. Lines from different surveys are never spliced together.
Groups differ from everyone by 4 points on average across all answers, in ANES.
| Line | Question | Match | How answers map |
|---|---|---|---|
| ANES | Most desirable national goal, second choice (IF FIRST CHOICE GIVEN: ) Which one {goal for our nation} would be your second choice? Caveat: Reference question; asked only after a first choice was given | identical | Maintaining order in the nation → Maintain order in the nation; Giving the people more say in important political decisions → Give people more say in government decisions; Fighting rising prices → Fight rising prices; Protecting freedom of speech → Protect freedom of speech |
| GSS | Second highest priority for America B. And which one do you think should be America's next highest priority, the second most important thing it should do? America should… Caveat: Slightly different wording; different survey and era (1993-2021 vs 1972-1992) | equivalent | Maintain order in the nation → Maintain order in the nation; Give people more say in government decisions → Give people more say in government decisions; Fight rising prices → Fight rising prices; Protect freedom of speech → Protect freedom of speech |
Groups differ from everyone by 3 points on average across all answers, in ANES.
Subgroup charts are picked automatically. Of every breakdown in the data (party, ideology, age, sex, race, education, income, region, religion, and community type), these two put their groups furthest from everyone’s answers: the gap is averaged across all answer categories and waves, with each group weighted by its share of respondents. Party and ideology count as one choice, so the second chart shows a different kind of split. Groups with an effective sample under 50 in a wave are left out of that wave.