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Who are MAGA supporters, and what do they believe in? In these figures, we elaborate on these questions. As the results make clear, they’re not a terribly diverse group: at least 60 percent of them are White, Christian and male. Further, around half are retired, over 65 years of age, and earn at least $50K per year. Finally, roughly 30 percent have at least a college degree. That MAGA supporters are older, Christian, men, more than half of whom are retired, comports with the now-familiar images of the Capitol riots. What may seem a bit surprising is that about half are middle-class by income, and almost 1/3 are middle-class by educational criteria. Apparently, these same images of the riot participants, ones portraying a mainly working-class crowd, were misleading.

Where do MAGA supporters live? This heat map shows the geographic locations of the MAGA supporters who participated in our survey. Each dot in the map corresponds with one survey respondent. Dark clusters of dots indicate that multiple respondents resided in the same geographic area. A few things stand out in this map. The first is that the MAGA movement has a presence in every state in the continental U.S. (with a few respondents residing in Alaska and Hawaii, not shown on this map). This much is expected, as we recruited survey respondents from all 50 states, proportional to state population. We discuss this more on our methods summary page. Second, MAGA presence corresponds with population density. As expected, less populous states in the Mountain West and Great Plains regions showed less activity. More populous states such as California, Texas, Florida, and other states in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic region registered more MAGA activity. Third, MAGA presence was not constrained to rural areas, as contemporary rhetoric about the urban-rural divide might lead us to expect. In most states, MAGA respondents were clustered around major cities like Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas.

The MAGA movement, it seems, is not a isolated phenomenon. Movement sympathizers make up a healthy portion of the Republican electorate, and they are well-represented throughout the country.

Turning to group affinities, it’s clear that conservative groups are popular among MAGA supporters. Given the demography of the group, this should come as no great shock. For instance, roughly 85 percent of MAGA supporters are members of gun-rights groups, though not necessarily gun owners. Approximately 60 percent of them are members of charities and pro-police groups, respectively. In addition, roughly 50 percent of MAGA supporters belong to anti-lockdown and pro-life groups, respectively. Here’s where matters take an interesting turn. It seems like the “Stop the Steal” campaign, and militia groups, are less popular among the MAGA movement than the popular press suggests. Though not insignificant, only 38 percent of the MAGA movement identifies with the “Stop the Steal” campaign. Likewise, only roughly 23 percent of the insurgent movement identifies with militia movements of any kind.