As the dust settles on the 2024 election cycle and the extent of Republican successes emerges, some observers are drawing a predictable conclusion: If voters supported GOP candidates in such large numbers, it must be because the electorate is agreement with the party on major issues of the day.

Mark Penn, a former adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, for example, has published a misjudgment of the choices to social media, which began, “America is a center-right country at heart. Only 25% are liberals, and the other 75% will not be governed by the 25.”

On a superficial level, I can appreciate how some come to conclusions like these. If a majority of voters supported Donald Trump and Republican congressional candidates, the argument goes, then it stands to reason that voters prefer conservative ideas to progressive ideas.

But a closer look at some of the election results suggests that the ideological lines are not so clean. Trump and his party, for example, have supported private school vouchers. But like The New York Times reportedvoters in three states — including two red states that Trump won handily — rejected voucher schemes.

In Kentucky, nearly two-thirds of voters defeated a proposal to allow state tax dollars to fund private and charter schools. In Nebraska, 57 percent of voters approved a ballot initiative that repealed a small program designed to give low-income families tax dollars to pay for private school fees. In Colorado, the votes are still being counted. But voters appear to have narrowly rejected a broadly worded ballot measure that would have established “the right to school choice,” including private schools and home schools.

Note that Nebraska voters backed the GOP ticket by more than 20 points. In Kentucky, the margin was more than 30 points. Yet those same voters took a good look at one of the Republican Party’s top education priorities and said, “No thanks.”

Moreover, it wasn’t just vouchers. Voters in 10 states considered abortion rights initiatives this year, and they passed in seven – including in some states carried by Trump. (In Florida, a majority of voters supported an abortion rights measure, but it was not a large enough majority to pass.)

In ruby ​​red Missouri, where Republicans like Trump and Sen. Josh Hawley won easily, voters also easy to approve measures to increase the minimum wage and oblige employers to provide proof of paid sick leave. Alaska voters, who also backed the GOP ticket by a wide margin, he did the same thingraising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and requiring employers to provide paid sick leave.

A few weeks before Election Day, YouGov ran an interesting poll asking respondents for their thoughts on the policy priorities of Trump and Kamala Harris – except the participants weren’t told which policies were associated with which candidates.

The results were remarkable: Harris’ agenda was much more popular than Trump’s, but many people had no idea that the Democrat’s priorities were, in fact, her priorities.

Asked What they wanted, voters supported Harris’ vision. Asked WHO they wanted, voters supported the candidate offering the opposite of her vision.

There is certainly room for a larger conversation about why many Americans who support progressive policies end up supporting candidates who will reject those same progressive policies. But on a variety of key fronts, it’s still true that a true center-right nation, filled with an electorate where conservatism was ascendant, probably wouldn’t have supported so many progressive ballot measures.