As the dust settles on the 2024 election cycle and the scope of Republican successes comes into view, some observers are drawing a predictable conclusion: If voters backed GOP candidates in such large numbers, it must be because the electorate agrees with the party on the major issues of the day.

Mark Penn, a former adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, for example, published a flawed election assessment to social media, which began, “America is a center right country at heart. Only 25 per cent are liberal and the other 75 per cent won’t be ruled by the 25.”

At a superficial level, I can appreciate how some arrive at conclusions like these. If most voters supported Donald Trump and Republican congressional candidates, the argument goes, then it stands to reason that voters prefer conservative ideas to progressive ideas.

But a closer look at some of the election results suggest the ideological lines aren’t nearly that clean. Trump and his party, for example, championed private school vouchers. But as The New York Times reported, voters in three states — including two red states where Trump won easily — rejected voucher schemes.

In Kentucky, nearly two-thirds of voters defeated a proposal to allow state tax dollars to fund private and charter schools. In Nebraska, 57% of voters approved a ballot initiative that repealed a small program intended to give low-income families tax dollars to pay for private-school tuition. In Colorado, votes are still being counted. But it looks likely that voters have narrowly rejected a broadly worded ballot measure that would have established a “right to school choice,” including in private schools and homeschool settings.

Note, Nebraska voters backed the GOP ticket by more than 20 points. In Kentucky, the margin was more than 30 points. But those same voters nevertheless took a good look at one of the Republican Party’s top educational priorities and said, “No thanks.”

What’s more, it wasn’t just vouchers. Voters in 10 states considered abortion-rights initiatives this year, and they passed in seven — including in some states Trump carried. (In Florida, a majority of voters supported an abortion-rights measure, but it wasn’t a large enough majority to pass.)

In ruby-red Missouri, where Republicans such as Trump and Sen. Josh Hawley won easily, voters also easily approved measures to raise the minimum wage and require employers to provide paid sick leave. Voters in Alaska, which also supported the GOP ticket by a wide margin, did the same thing, increasing the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour and requiring employers to provide paid sick leave.

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A few weeks before Election Day, YouGov conducted an interesting survey in which it asked respondents for their opinions about Trump’s and Kamala Harris’ policy priorities — except the twist was that participants weren’t told which policies were associated with which candidates.

The results were remarkable: Harris’ agenda was far more popular than Trump’s, but many people had no idea that the Democrat’s priorities were, in fact, her priorities.

Asked what they wanted, voters backed Harris’ vision. Asked who they wanted, voters backed the candidate offering the opposite of her vision.

To be sure, there’s room for a broader conversation about why many Americans who support progressive policies end up also supporting candidates who’ll reject those same progressive policies. But on a variety of key fronts, it’s nevertheless true that a true center-right nation, filled with an electorate where conservatism was ascendent, probably wouldn’t have backed quite so many progressive ballot measures.