It's not clear to me that conservatives want strong state power in general. Conservatives don't in general, only for some minor social issues like abortion. B

It's not clear to me that conservatives want strong state power in general. Conservatives don't in general, only for some minor social issues like abortion. But Republicans generally do. There is no classically conservative party in American politics now. Hasn't been since the Bush administration's response to 9/11. Both major parties now stand for expanding state power as much as they possibly can. edit: child comment is correct, I misread "state" as any government. As for actual states, my perception is that neither party cares about state power vs federal power. Republicans occasionally make noise about it, but only because they're not in power federally at the moment. The next time the presidency goes Republican, the GOP will be fully on the federal side.