In an attempt to have a more nuanced picture of Washington State voters than the simplistic Red/Blue divide, the latest Elway poll—which posed two questions about the role of government—broke voters into four groups: Libertarians, populists, liberals, and progressives.

The winner, which Elway reports compares to the mood of the state in 1994 (a big year for Republicans): Libertarians.

Based on how strongly they agreed or disagreed with two statements— 1) Government should guarantee every person enough to eat and a place to sleep and 2) Government controls too much of our daily lives—the poll identified 37 percent of voters as libertarians, 28 percent as populists; 18 percent as liberals; and 10 percent as progressives.

However, Elway tempers the good news for Republicans with some other findings.

Mitigating the Republican optimism are a couple of other  facts.  For  one  thing,  these  strains  have  been dominant  in  Washington  politics  for  years  while  the  state  was  becoming  more  reliably  Democratic.  The Tea  Party  has  not  gained  traction  here  in  the  Pacific Northwest. Second,  1994  was  an  off‐year  election  which  has been  when  Republicans  have  made  their  best  showings.  They  have  not  fared  so  well  in  presidential years.  Democrats  have  won  46  out  of  57  statewide elections. Third,  only  26%  of  the  respondents  in  that  1994 survey  indentified  themselves  as  Democrats  (30% were Republicans). In the current survey, Democrats outnumbered Republicans 37 to 24 percent.

I'm not sure I agree with Elway's definitions. For example, the distinction between liberals and progressives, according to Elway, is that while neither group believes government has too much control, liberals think government has a responsibility to ensure citizens have food and shelter while progressives don't. I'm not sure that's the best way to parse out progressives from liberals. Don't social issues, the specifics of social programs,  the level of marketplace regulation, and education reform distinguish these labels more?

Nor do I think the poll uses the right metrics to define populism. Elway assigns the populist label to voters who think government has too much control, but also want government to provide food and shelter. It's definitely not that simple.

Read the whole thing here . Fascinating stuff.

Elway polled 408 voters statewide. The poll was conducted between June 28 and 30. It has a five percent margin of error.