[pianopatrick]

"median American voter" implies a distribution of views like a normal distribution, with a lot of people in the middle and a few people on extremes. If that is the distribution, then the median is representative of most people. I am not sure that is really a great way of thinking about American voters these days. It seems to me that American's views on many issues are tending to cluster around extremes, with fewer people in the middle. So I am not sure the median is as meaningful.

[AndrewKemendo]

Median does not assume anything about the distribution which is precisely why I use it. Median allows for us to count max total of one category because the variances are so small. Hence why medians can actually demonstrate the underlying distribution instead of commingling amplitude like the mean.

In this case it’s “American Voter” as the category. This is what messes most people up, because they read “American Citizen” but I’m describing only the subset of citizens who successfully vote.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patte...

Using that number you’ll see what the demographics demonstrate: there are not as many progressive voters as there are “conservative” voters and only 2/3 of eligible voters even cared to vote.

If you zoom out even further and you evaluate which candidates run, then it really does not matter who is voting or not because ultimately who is on the ballot is dictated by a small group of party leaders, who in turn are dictated by whomever has the most money for ad spending.