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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The residents of most U.S. states are more likely to identify as conservative than as liberal in their political ideology. In 25 states, the conservative advantage is significantly greater than the national average, including 19 "highly conservative" states in which conservatives outnumber liberals by at least 20 percentage points. Meanwhile, in six states, there are more liberals than conservatives.

Nationally, the conservative advantage in ideological identification is nine percentage points, and reflects a narrowing of the conservative-liberal gap from 21 points in 2004.

These findings are based on aggregated data from Gallup's 2018 tracking poll in which respondents were asked to indicate whether they describe their political views as liberal, moderate or conservative.

States in which the conservative-liberal gap is 20 points or greater are considered "highly conservative." The "more conservative than average" states have gaps of between 15 and 19 points. "About average" states' residents prefer the conservative description by seven to 14 points, and those with gaps of zero to six points are considered "less conservative than average."

The number of states in which more residents identify as liberal than as conservative is down slightly from nine in 2017. Many of the changes are within the margin of error for the state's sample -- states that barely tilted liberal in 2017 barely tilted conservative in 2018 -- so it is unclear how meaningful these changes are.

Mississippi ranked as the most conservative state in 2018, with 50% of residents identifying as conservative and 12% as liberal, for a gap of 38 points. Twenty-nine percent of Mississippians said they are moderate, and 9% had no opinion.

Massachusetts was the most liberal state in 2018, with 35% of its residents describing their political views as liberal and 21% as conservative. Massachusetts was the first state Gallup measured with more liberal than conservative identifiers (in 2008) and has been the state most consistently leaning more liberal than conservative.

The full results for each state follow.

State Ideological Identification, 2018

Editor's Note: The story has been updated to correct the sample size of national adults.

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Conservatives Greatly Outnumber Liberals in 19 U.S. States

This view garners further support from the research on happiness. A Pew Research study, for instance, ties the Republican attainment of happiness advantage over Democrats in part to more marriage, greater family satisfaction and higher levels of religious attendance.

In a separate study of the conservative-liberal happiness gap, the psychologists Barry R. Schlenker, John Chambers and Bonnie Le explore liberal disengagement from family and faith. They note, Liberals have become less happy over the last several decades, but this decline is associated with increasingly secular attitudes and actions (e.g., less religiosity, less likelihood of being married, and perhaps lessened belief in personal agency).

In our survey, we found a modest gap between conservatives and liberals age 18 to 55 in being very happy with 22 percent of conservatives reporting they are very happy compared with 17 percent of liberals (conservatives are also a bit more likely to say they are pretty happy). This gap is not explained by socioeconomic differences in income, race, age and gender between the two groups. But once we control for marriage, parenthood, family satisfaction, religious attendance and community satisfaction, the ideological gap in happiness disappears.

On Thanksgiving, a holiday so many of us spend with our loved ones, we emphasize that of all these social factors, the biggest factor predicting overall happiness is satisfaction with family life. Certainly this doesnt determine the direction of causation, but the findings advance the case that support and social connections particularly at home are important for happiness.

As part of our research, we spoke to a number of Americans about family. The case of Katie, a 38-year-old Virginia married mother of two, illustrates the point. This right-leaning woman has noticed a difference between her life before and after she married and had children. Although she has less time for herself, she much prefers her new status as a married mother. Shes less lonely and finds more purpose and meaning in the mundane day-to-day life, as well as exciting times when my kids hit certain milestones.

She reported a fuller happiness now as a wife and mother, in part because it is shared with her husband, children and extended family members as well as friends who are also raising families with whom, she said, she often has a common ground to talk about.

The connection between social ties and happiness also applies to those on the left. Julie, a 46-year-old, self-described progressive mother of four in Salt Lake City, has been married for more than two decades and is engaged in community volunteering; shes also active in her local church. She works full time and balances a dizzying array of responsibilities. Its her home life, however, where she finds the greatest joys and the greatest struggles. But each commitment, she said, brings an opportunity to connect with people around me.

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Opinion | How Liberals Can Be Happier - The New York Times

Members of Parliament are able to work from home again after passing a motion Thursday to resume hybrid sittings of the House of Commons.

Liberals and New Democrats joined forces to pass the motion over the objections of Conservative and Bloc Quebecois MPs who had wanted to fully return to normal, in-person operations.

The motion gives MPs the option of participating virtually in proceedings, including votes and debates in the Commons and its committees, starting Friday and continuing until the House breaks for the summer in June.

It passed late Thursday by a vote of 180-140 after the NDP supported the Liberals in putting an end to two days of debate on the matter.

MPs first adopted the hybrid format a year ago, aimed at limiting the number of members in the Commons to avoid spreading COVID-19. But the all-party agreement to allow that format expired last June.

Since Parliament resumed Monday after a five-month hiatus, all but one of the countrys 338 MPs have been in the Commons because there was no unanimous agreement to return to hybrid sittings.

The missing MP Conservative Richard Lehoux tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, two days after attending an in-person Tory caucus retreat.

Government House leader Mark Holland welcomed the return of the hybrid format, saying it will allow Lehoux and anyone else who falls ill or has to isolate due to exposure to the virus to continue working remotely.

In an interview after the vote, he said he hopes unvaccinated Conservative MPs also opt to work from home and not cause an issue around public health.

I still would like to know how many there are and I would like the assurance from the leader that hes not going to allow these unvaccinated individuals in the chamber.

Conservative Leader Erin OToole has said all his 118 MPs are either fully vaccinated or have a medical exemption. He has refused to say how many are exempt and Holland has questioned the statistical probability that multiple MPs would have valid medical reasons to not be immunized.

The motion specifies that MPs who choose to participate in person must be fully vaccinated or have a medical exemption based on the limited exceptions spelled out by the Ontario health ministry and the National Advisory Committee on Immunization.

Earlier Thursday, OToole accused the Liberal-NDP coalition of shutting down Parliament.

He argued that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his fellow Liberals were content to call an election and attend campaign events in September and to gather with thousands of people at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow a few weeks ago.

While they were willing to do those things because it suited them, he said they are today shutting down debate and limiting democratic accountability because it bothers them.

It is hypocrisy of the highest order, OToole charged.

But Holland countered that theres a big difference between people choosing whether to attend events and requiring all MPs, regardless of their health circumstances, to be physically present in the Commons if they want to participate in proceedings.

This is a very different situation. We have people flying in from every corner of the country, spending a week together, commingling in a very, very small space and then going back to every part of the country, he said.

Holland said hes heard from some MPs who are immunocompromised and are afraid to be in the chamber, particularly when the Conservatives refuse to say how many of their members are unvaccinated or whether those members are self-isolating after being exposed to Lehoux last week.

That is absolutely unacceptable in a pandemic to put people who are in a vulnerable health circumstance, to force them to be in a situation where their health is at risk, he said.

During debate on the motion Thursday, Conservative and Bloc Quebecois MPs argued that virtual proceedings allow the government to avoid scrutiny. They noted that in the last session, cabinet ministers frequently didnt turn up in the Commons even though they were in their Parliament Hill offices.

Holland promised that a majority of ministers, including the prime minister, will be in the House in the future.

New Democrat MP Laurel Collins spoke in the chamber while holding her seven-month-old daughter in her arms. She said travelling back and forth from her Victoria B.C., riding with an infant is never easy but its nerve-racking during the pandemic.

Should her daughter catch a mild cold or have a teething fever, Collins said she wouldnt be allowed to board a plane with her. And should that prevent her from travelling to Ottawa, Collins said shed be denied the right to participate in proceedings if there is no hybrid format.

Women deserve the choice to participate, she told the Commons, adding that the chamber was built by men, for men and we have a long way to go if we want equal access.

But Conservative MP Raquel Dancho countered that during the last session there was frequently only one Liberal MP in the chamber, the rest participating virtually.

Not all the other ones had COVID or were having babies, she said.

Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press

RELATED: Tories who questioned vaccines not in critic roles

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Liberals, NDP pass motion to resume hybrid format in House of Commons - Castlegar News

"The Ingraham Angle" host Laura Ingraham exposed the pivotal ideological flips on the left in her opening monologue Tuesday night.

"Liberals used to believe in more - not less - speech, and they were defenders of the First Amendment and the rights of defendants," she said. "They were suspicious of over-zealous prosecutors. They were wary of elites who pretended to care about the downtrodden. They believed in a color-blind society."

"But now they flipped on so many fronts," she continued. "The new liberals are actually illiberal. They lose all sense of logic where politics is concerned. They are among the most closed-minded, intolerant people youll ever encounter. They disinvite conservative relatives from weddings and bar mitzvahs. Heck, if you voted for [former President Donald] Trump, they nixed you from the holiday party list long ago."

"This intellectual decay didnt happen overnight,"she explained. "It occurred over decades, with liberals subverting the institutions that traditionally nurtured both critical thinking skills and a love of country, turning them all into kind of cheap propaganda outlets."

Instead of teaching "the great works of Western civilization," leftists think United States' history "should forever be defined by two things: slavery and oppression."

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"America thrives when we reward those of all colors and backgrounds who are hard-working, capable and independent instead of those who spend their waking hours waiting for the world to come to themand complaining about how unfairlife is," she said. "We also need dedicated public servants who understand that if they refuse to protect the publics safety, the public will have to protect themselves. Its time to demand better of ourselves and of those we elect to office."

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The new liberals are actually illiberal: Ingraham - Fox News

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A left-wing dark money juggernaut hauled in a jaw-dropping $1.6 billion in cash from anonymous donors to bankroll groups and causes in 2020, tax forms reveal.

The forms further show that the secret money network, managed byWashington, D.C.-based consulting firm Arabella Advisors, pushed an astounding $896 million in contributions and grants to liberal groups last year.

The Arabella-managed network has solidified howDemocratsquietly benefit from massive amounts of anonymous donations as they simultaneously rail against the influence of dark money in the political sphere.

The network's web of groups sits under four Arabella-managed nonprofits: the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund and Hopewell Fund.

DEMOCRATS' HR1 ELECTION BILL BOOSTED BY LIBERAL DARK MONEY GROUP FINANCED BY FOREIGN NATIONAL

Each of the funds acts as a fiscal sponsor to other liberal nonprofits, meaning they provide their tax and legal status to the nonprofits housed beneath the funds. This arrangement allows the fiscally sponsored groups to avoid filing tax forms to theIRS, which would shed light on their financials.

The funds do not disclose donors on their tax forms.

"Arabella is proud to work for these nonprofits, providing HR, legal, payroll, and other administrative services," Steve Sampson, spokesperson for Arabella Advisors, told Fox News. "They make their own decisions on their strategy, programmatic work, and fundraising."

The New Venture Fund is the network's largest nonprofit incubator in terms of sheer cash. In 2020, the fund raised $965 million in anonymous contributions, itstax formsshow.

The Sixteen Thirty Fund hauled in$388 million, the Windward Fund raised$158 millionand the Hopewell Fund facilitated$150 millionin secret donations, their respective tax forms show.

The funds funneled a combined $1.6 billion from secret donors in 2020 - a drastic increase of $885 million over what the fundshad raked inthroughout 2019.

The Capital Research Center found the four funds have implemented more than 300 "pop-up" projects to boost Democratic causes and attack Republican initiatives since their inception.

The groups push efforts ranging fromhealth careto climate initiatives, work on state-level advocacy and ballot measures, and spent big last year to defeat formerPresident Trump.

As the Arabella-managed funds garnered astronomical donations last year, they passed large sums of cash to nonprofits in and outside its network.

The New Venture Fund disbursed $447 million in 2020, itstax formsshow. The contributions include $44 million to America Votes, $25 million to the election reform group Center for Tech and Civic Life and $1 million to the Center for American Progress, which has produced dozens ofBiden White Housestaffers.

RON KLAIN, BIDEN'S POWERFUL CHIEF OF STAFF, LEADS WHITE HOUSE RIFE WITH DARK MONEY TIES

"In response to the urgent global and nationwide challenges of 2020, we were proud to work on all major issues in philanthropy last year, including addressing climate change, election security, racial justice, youth empowerment and education, and global health and international development," Lee Bodner, president of the New Venture Fund, told Fox News.

Bodner said the New Venture Fund does not engage in partisan activities or support any political campaigns.

Meanwhile, the Sixteen Thirty Fund provided$325 millionto liberal endeavors, according to tax forms. Its lucrative grants went to groups such as America Votes ($128 million), Defending Democracy Together ($10 million), a Bill Krystol-directed group, and American Bridge 21st Century Foundation ($2.1 million), led by liberal operative David Brock.

The Sixteen Thirty Fund also financed attack ads against President Trump and other Republicans,Politicoreported.

Amy Kurtz, president of the Sixteen Thirty Fund, told Fox News that last year the group "helped progressive changemakers quickly and efficiently launch new initiatives to address existential threats of historic proportion: a global pandemic, a long-overdue reconning with racial justice, and a climate crisis that we are now living month after month."

Kurtz said the fund is dedicated to "reducing the influence of special interest money in politics" and "leveling the playing field for progressives." She added that they support the For the People Act, which calls for tackling dark money.

The Windward Fund, which primarily focuses onenvironmentalinitiatives, pushed$44 millioninto causes, its tax forms show. Despite their primary focus, the fund moved money to voter engagement groups such as the Missouri Organizing and Voter Engagement Collaborative and the National Vote at Home Institute.

"As the effects of climate change continue to impact communities across the United States and world, the Windward Fund incubated and supported a range of water, climate, and environmental initiatives last year," the group told Fox News in a statement.

"We are proud that we connected and supported groups across diverse geographies, sectors, and communities like never before in 2020, enabling them to mobilize efficiently and elevate the voices of those impacted most by the environmental crisis," the Windward Fund said.

The Hopewell Fund funneled$80 millionto Democratic causes in 2020, its tax forms show. Its most significant contribution was $8 million to ACRONYM, a progressive-media group.

Tara McGowan, who led ACRONYM, launcheda new project this year called Good Information, Inc. to counter "fake news" and disinformation. ACRONYM funded Courier Newsroom, which has been called a "fake news" site by watchdogs. Good Information acquired Courier Newsroom as part of its operations.

"The Hopewell Fund is proud of the work we did in 2020 to help make the world a more equitable place through fiscal sponsorship, charitable initiatives, and grant making," the group wrote in a statement to Fox News. "Our work last year helped nonprofit projects address some of the most pressing issues our society is experiencing, including income inequality, civic engagement, and health care access."

LIBERAL DARK MONEY GROUPS DRIVE EFFORTS TO PACK THE SUPREME COURT

Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of the watchdog group Americans for Public Trust, attempted to gather the fund's tax forms in person last week but was escorted out by security.

"No wonder Arabella Advisorscalled securityon Americans for Public Trust when we requested these tax returns," Sutherland told Fox News. "They were delaying the release of documents that would show they funneled over $1 billion to liberal and left wing causes."

"After years of railing on the evils of dark money, all while being bankrolled by a Swiss billionaire, it is clear liberals are the main beneficiary of undisclosed donations," Sutherland said.

A host of influential Democratic donors use the Arabella-managed funds as a conduit to funnel cash to projects, including billionairesGeorge Sorosand Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss national who said in 2014 he did not hold American citizenship.

The Open Society Policy Center, Soros' advocacy nonprofit, was anearly funderof the judicial advocacy group Demand Justice, which the Sixteen Thirty Fund fiscally sponsored until this year.

Demand Justice has been at the forefront of Republican judicial fights, including pushing back against the nomination of now-Supreme CourtJustice Brett Kavanaugh.

FILE - In this Sept. 27, 2015, file photo, George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management, talks during a television interview for CNN at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. (AP)

Shortly before Demand Justice publicly launched in 2018, Brian Fallon, the group's leader, mingled at an Atlanta Democracy Alliance donor club gathering, which counts Soros as a member. Hewas in attendanceto promote his group, and Soros' donation flowed to the group around that time.

The Democracy Alliance has alsorecommendedthat its members, who largely remain hidden, provide donations to initiatives housed at the Arabella-managed funds in its internal documents.

Sorosaddedmillions more to projects housed at the Sixteen Thirty Fund last year, including the Governing for Impact Action Fund and Trusted Elections Action Fund, an Open Society Foundations database shows.

The Sixteen Thirty Fundalso paidthe Democracy Alliance hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting services in the past.

At least one Arabella Advisors employee, Scott Nielson, its managing director of advocacy,workedwith Soros' nonprofits and the Democracy Alliance before joining the consulting firm.

Meanwhile, Wyss, theSwissbillionaire, is also connected to the Democracy Alliance and is a significant financial backer of the Sixteen Thirty Fund.

Between 2016 and early 2020, Wyss directed $135 million into the Sixteen Thirty Fund through the Wyss Foundation's advocacy arm, the Berger Action Fund, the New York Times reported.

LIBERAL DARK MONEY GROUP 1630 FUND'S ELECTION WISHLIST BOOSTED BY SWISS BILLIONAIRE

Another group closely related to the Sixteen Thirty Fund and Wyss is the Hub Project, a behind-the-scenes group that has received millions of dollars from the Wyss Foundation. The Wyss Foundation is one of the top donors to the Hub Project, which has a history of distributing funds from the Sixteen Thirty Fund to state-level groups.

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 01: Former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg (L) and philanthropist Hansjorg Wyss attend Oceana's 2015 New York City benefit at Four Seasons Restaurant on April 1, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Oceana) (Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Oceana)

One of the state-level groups was Floridians for a Fair Democracy, which received $3.95 million from the Sixteen Thirty Fund to help restore voting rights for more than a million felons through a ballot initiative in 2018.

Another billionaire, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, disclosed giving $45 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund for a group called the Civic Action Fund last year,Politicoreported.

Arabella Advisors collected large sums from the four funds for administrative, operations and management services in 2020, making it a highly lucrative business.

The tax forms show the New Venture Fund paid nearly$27 millionto Arabella, while the Sixteen Thirty Fund disbursed$9 millionto the firm. The Windward Fund doled out almost$3 millionfor its services, while the Hopewell Fund added$6.6 million to Arabella.

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Arabella was paid $45 million between the funds for their management services.

Eric Kessler, a formerBill Clintonappointee and member of the Clinton Global Initiative, is the founder and head of Arabella Advisors.

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Liberal dark money juggernaut raises $1.6 billion to flood left-wing groups with cash, tax forms reveal - Fox News