GSS data on politics by ancestral origin, grouped into “Heritage American” tiers among early Euro settlers/immigrants + all others:
A: English, Scottish, German, Dutch
B: French, Scandi, Swiss, Austrian, Belgian
C: Italian, Irish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Russian
D: All others
Not only are heritage Americans the most conservative, but individually the Dutch, English, Germans, and Scots are the most conservative.
Note where the natural conservative Indians are: second last.
The Dutch, English, Germans, and Scots are among four of the most Republican ethnicities.
Mean ideology by ethnicity:
Mean Party ID by ethnicity:
Source: The General Social Survey (GSS). This uses the 1994–2024 cumulative cross-section of 46,311 respondents for the survey years. 36,452 provided valid responses to the ETHNIC variable (self-reported ancestral country of origin) after excluding code 97 ("American Only").
Tiers are based on relative dates of settlement and immigration for Europeans. All others include every groups with decent samples.
"American Only" Exclusion: 859 respondents: is excluded from all analyses and all heritage tiers. Some suggest this group is largely descended from colonial-era settlers (Fischer's Albion's Seed), their self-ID as simply “American” rather than a specific country makes them ambiguous.
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