Conservatives report higher mental health levels than liberals. Self-report bias refuted by differential item functioning studies. Method of correlated vectors shows strong general factor link between conservatism and mental health. Demographic differences do not explain the gap. Longitudinal data shows conservatism does not cause better mental health. Mental health sometimes predicts conservatism. Genetic and environmental overlap between personality traits and political views. Common causes model best fits evidence. Association uniform across demographic groups. Conservatives have better moods despite similar self-reports in some data. Gap persists after controlling for beliefs. Signaling strength by conservatives boosts actual happiness. Liberals signaling weakness increases anxiety and depression. Political views mostly reflect underlying hardware. Conservatism measures stable tendencies linked to mental stability. No evidence specific conservative beliefs cause happiness. Twin models show heritable overlap ruling out pure demographic confounding. Changes in political views do not alter mental health reporting consistently. Longitudinal models favor common causes over mental health causing conservatism.