That sounds more likely to me, and completely agreed on the point that increased government for the sake of it has never been a point of conversation for me I c

That sounds more likely to me, and completely agreed on the point that increased government for the sake of it has never been a point of conversation for me I can think of with someone who identifies as liberal where they were arguing that more government is the end goal, but there may be specific things they think the government should handle (healthcare). On the reverse, in my experience talking to more conservative people, I have had that topic of "smaller government" come up multiple times. So my anecdotal experiences align with your points pretty well.