More Americans Identify as Republican Than Democrat

Once upon a time, the great divide was essentially a political philosophical battle between individualism and statism. No more, now its common sense versus depraved irrationality. Real versus anti-real.

Remember the Republican majority on election night.

More Americans Identify as Republican Than Democrat. Here’s What That Means for the Election.

Rare GOP advantage takes pressure off Trump to win over independent voters

By Aaron Zitner, Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2024 5:00 am ET

Beneath the headline results in many polls, something unusual has turned up with big implications for politics: More voters are calling themselves Republicans than Democrats, suggesting that the GOP has its first durable lead in party identification in more than three decades.

The development gives former President Donald Trump an important structural advantage in the November election. But other factors could prove more important to the outcome. Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris still leads narrowly in many polls, in some cases because she does well with independent voters.

Bill McInturff, a GOP pollster who works on NBC News surveys, first noticed in May that more voters were calling themselves Republicans. “Wow, the biggest deal in polling is when lines cross, and for the first time in decades, Republicans now have the national edge on party ID,” he wrote. He called the development “the underrecognized game-changer for 2024.”

In combined NBC polls this year, Republicans lead by 2 percentage points over Democrats, 42% to 40%, when voters were asked which party they identified with. That compares with Democratic leads of 6 points in 2020, 7 points in 2016 and 9 points in 2012.

“Republicans being 5 to 9 points down on party identification—that is like running uphill,” McInturff said. “We don’t know the election’s outcome, but we know Republicans have a better shot at doing well if party ID is functionally tied, with perhaps the smallest tilt toward Republicans.”

Gallup also found more voters identifying as Republican than Democratic, by 3 points in its July-to-September surveys. It was the first time that the GOP had an advantage in the third quarter before a presidential election in Gallup surveys dating to 1992.

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