Political differences among people are not a matter of chance; they are significantly related to such interdependent variables as party identification, issue orientation, and candidate preference. The national sample survey of 1,614 respondents conducted by the Survey Research Center during the 1952 presidential election gives us a sound basis for investigating this phenomenon: 1,200 of the respondents were classified as “middle class” or “working class.” Of the 389 middle class people, 69 per cent said they preferred the Republican candidate, but only 43 per cent of the 811 working class people expressed this preference (Table I).