In recent weeks, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has been gaining media momentum as polls show him garnering about 10 percent of the vote in a race with Trump and Clinton. His candidacy has attracted attention to the libertarian ideas he espouses and the people who embrace the label.
The popular media stereotype of libertarians is disproportionately white and male. But is this accurate? What do the data actually say?
As it turns out, the libertarian label is embraced by a more racially and ethnically diverse group of individuals than some may realize, but tilts male.
Averaging across nine Reason-Rupe surveys I conducted at Reason Foundation/Reason Magazine with Princeton Survey Research Associates between 2012–2014 and a recent survey we conducted here at the Cato Institute with YouGov, here’s what we find: Among those who self-identify as “libertarian”, 71 percent are Caucasian, 14 percent are Latino, 5 percent are African-American, 8 percent identify as another race, and 4 percent chose not to identify. While not an exact reflection, these numbers are similar to the demographic makeup of all respondents averaged across the surveys: 67 percent white, 13 percent Latino, 12 percent African-American , 7 percent identifying as other, and 1 percent not identifying.
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