Republicans currently lead Democrats in party affiliation by 1 percent.
As recently as June, four months ago, Democrats were leading Republicans in affiliation by seven percent.
Two years ago, shortly before the 2018 midterms, Democrats led Republicans by six percent in affiliation.
Four years ago, shortly before the 2016 election, Democrats led Republicans by four percent in affiliation.
The number of voters identifying as “independent” significantly exceeds both Democrats or Republicans.
However, Biden is still leading Trump big in the polls. This suggests that either a significant number of Republicans are planning to vote for Biden, or that independents are heavily leaning pro-Biden. (Both could be true, too.)
I could see the Bernie wing choosing to eschew Democratic party identification.
Second - It could be that this reflects something similar to the reputed “shy Trump supporter” trend. There may be some who have internalized a message that “the Democrats” are somehow all evil/bad/toxic, based on decades of R-Wing media portrayals. So, instead of Democratic party identification, they identify as “independent”, but will vote Democratic.
Which, as always, reminds us not to put stock in any one specific poll. It’s better to look at averages.
The last five polls (run every two weeks) for Dems:
-1
+1
+5
+1
+7
Just scrolling through your link, I see several times between 2004 and now when the Republican-identifying percentage exceeds the Democratic-identifying percentage. Am I missing something?
Jan-Mar of this year the Republicans had the lead or were tied.
Also note, they typically ask a followup for the independents about which way they lean (Rep vs Dem) and the independents have been regularly more left leaning.
I’ve met people who consider themselves too left wing for the Democrats, but never anyone who considers themselves too right wing for the Republicans. I never hear anyone to the right of the Republicans saying they need to vote Republican for now and can push us further right later, but that is a common refrain among the left. So there could easily be more affiliation with Republicans, but the same or even more consistent Democratic voters than consistent Republican voters.
If there really were that big a difference, I would expect at least congressional Republicans to be doing better. It would be odd for there to be more who vote Republican in a year where the Democrats are favored to win all three of the House, Senate, and presidency and where undecided voters are so low. Especially when it takes fewer Republican voters than Democratic ones to win due to how the electoral college interacts with state preferences.
The thread title literally says, “For the first time since 2004, Republican party affiliation overtakes Democratic affiliation.” By the OP’s own cite, that is a false statement.
Ah, gotcha! Yeah, I just don’t see that there’s much that can be read into the current situation based on that Gallup poll. The only real clear trend is the growth of those identifying as independent.
My understanding is that the number of registered Republicans has been gradually increasing as people who vote R but were registered D change their registration. That shift has been going on for some 40 years. OTOH, new young voters often register unaffiliated, even though they usually vote D or Green. Note that this is about formal registration, not what they tell pollsters.
Anyhow, though, it is still surprising that more identify with the R’s than D’s, or that it’s even close. One would think that D-identification would be far outpacing the Republicans. Are so many people disgruntled with the D’s that they’d rather identify as independent than Democratic?
As noted, the numbers move around quite a bit, so it probably doesn’t imply much of anything. And rather than being disgruntled with the Democratic Party, it could just as much imply less of a commitment to the two party system especially in younger voters who are much more likely to vote for D candidates.
If you look past this specific question and more at voting patterns, you’ll see the trend is going in the opposite direction from the impression you seem to be making here.
In Oregon, people are automatically registered to vote when they get a driver’s license or ID card from the DMV, unless they opt out. That registration is unaffiliated. You have respond to a follow-up postcard to register with a party. So, the affiliation of voters in Oregon has been shifting, with more and more unaffiliated.
Around primary season, some people will tune in and change to affiliate with the party whose primary they want to vote in, but there’s a lot who don’t do that, so “unaffiliated” has been steadily increasing. (Not “independent” because Oregon has an Independent party.)
I changed my affiliation from Republican to Independent just before the 2016 election.
When I was coming to voter age, I had no interest in politics at all. My parents INFORMED ME I was to register R. Not caring, I did.
My first election would have been GW Bush. I don’t recall voting at all.
I Voted for Obama twice, “traded my vote” in 2016 since I’m in a bright red state (in retrospect I’m not super certain that was helpful by any metric) and voted for Biden/blue down ballot.
I am registered Indy because I’m somewhere left of Bernie. I don’t like all the infighting and “we’ll eat our own” mentality I see in politics, but I identify as a PROGRESSIVE above all else. I just want to keep moving in a better direction, and obviously that means the major players for me to pick from are going to be on team blue since team red is a regressive party.
Regarding the OP:
If republican voter registration is swinging ~8% since June, could team red’s doorknocking campaign to register voters account for the spike? Because team blue felt it was unsafe to door knock.
My friend and I are skeptical of the real-world context for door-knock voter sign-ups–you come to my house, I have to do nothing and you’ll register me? Sure.
…but voting won’t be that easy, and since team red relies on dedicated wait-in-liners to come out and deal with the crowds on election day, I’m not so sure people who weren’t already registered to vote will be able to find it within themselves to actually suffer the rigamarole of toughing out the crowds on election day. Imagine not caring enough to get registered before now but also caring enough to wait in line for hours on end.
Been following this github page that tracks returned ballots.