U.S. Party Preferences Swing Sharply To Democrats –

By Glynn Wilson –

Gallup’s latest polling reveals the damage President Donald J. Trump has done to the Republican Party and indicates the presidential and U.S. Senate elections in 2020 are the Democrats to lose with less than four months to go.

While Trump seemed to be riding high back in February when the economy appeared to be rolling along and he managed to hold on to enough Republican votes in the Senate to stave off impeachment, things began to change in March due to his reaction to and mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic.

As the economy went downhill, and then he reacted to social justice protests of police brutality in June with unvarnished racism, people on the margins began sliding toward supporting Democrats and away from Republicans.

As of now, half the people in the United States (50%) identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party. That’s 32 percent party loyalists and 18 percent leaners. Only 26 precent of Americans now say they are Republicans, and only 13 percent lean in that direction, or 39 percent, a number close to Trump’s 38 percent job approval, according to the last Gallup survey report.

“Since January, Americans’ party preferences have shifted dramatically in the Democratic Party’s direction,” Gallup says in its analysis of the numbers. “What had been a two-percentage-point Republican advantage in U.S. party identification and leaning has become an 11-point Democratic advantage, with more of that movement reflecting a loss in Republican identification and leaning (down eight points) than a gain in Democratic identification and leaning (up five points).”

It was different in January and February, back when the Senate acquitted Trump on impeachment charges brought by the House of Representatives, when slightly more Americans preferred the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, according to Gallup.

Then in March, as the nation began to deal with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats gained a slight two-point advantage, which persisted in April and May.

“The greatest movement occurred in June — likely because of increased attention to racial injustice that followed the death of George Floyd while in police custody on May 25, as well as increased U.S. struggles to contain the coronavirus spread,” Gallup says. “In June alone, there was a three-point increase in Democratic identification and leaning, and a corresponding five-point drop in Republican identification and leaning.”

In the history of polling, Democrats have typically held an average of a five percentage point advantage over Republicans in party affiliation, yet double-digit advantages have been relatively uncommon.

The party last held an advantage of 10 points or more in January 2019 (51% to 39%), when Democrats were installed as the majority party in the House of Representatives after their success in the 2018 midterm elections, Gallup points out. Democrats and Democratic leaners also outnumbered Republicans and Republican leaners by 10 points or more in several months in 2018 just before the midterms.

Gallup’s Implications

“Four months before Election Day, Democrats appear to be as strong politically now as they were in 2018 when they reclaimed the majority in the House of Representatives and gained seven governorships…,” Gallup says. “If the strong current Democratic positioning holds through Election Day, Democrats could build off those 2018 successes to possibly win the presidency and Senate in 2020.”

Many Republican senators up for reelection this year were last elected in 2014, a favorable year for Republicans, according to Gallup, and appear to be facing a much more challenging political environment than six years ago.

“At the same time, Trump — with a job approval rating currently below 40 percent — appears vulnerable to being denied a second term,” Gallup says, meaning this race is now the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee Joe Biden’s to lose. He leads by four to 12 points in all the polls, none within the margin of error, as we previously reported.

“This year has been an eventful one, politically,” Gallup says. “Trump’s impeachment acquittal and a strong economy in January and February seemed to benefit the Republican Party. The coronavirus pandemic changed things suddenly, but the public initially rallied behind its leaders.”

However, “after the public became critical of Trump’s handling of the situation and Floyd’s killing made racial injustice a major public issue, Americans became increasingly likely to align themselves with the Democratic Party. Whether the current political environment holds or takes another unexpected turn will help determine the balance of power in 2021.”

History

The Republican Party has yet to average a 10-point or better advantage in party identification or leaning for an entire month since Gallup began regularly measuring independents’ political leanings in late 1991.

There were multiple Gallup polls with 10-point GOP advantages in March 1991 after the U.S. victory in the Persian Gulf War, but Gallup did not measure independents’ political leanings in other polls taken that month, so the data are incomplete. The largest GOP advantage Gallup has measured for a complete month was eight points in December 1994, after the major Republican victories in that year’s midterm elections.

Other times when Americans’ party preferences favored Democrats by more than 10 points over Republicans were:

December 2012, after Barack Obama was elected to a second term and the nation dealt with the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting tragedy.

Throughout much of George W. Bush’s second term as president, when his job approval ratings were low. In fact, in the calendar years 2006, 2007 and 2008, Democrats’ average edge in party affiliation was 10 points or more. During this time, Democrats scored major victories in the 2006 and 2008 elections, which led to them having control of the White House and large majorities in both houses of Congress in 2009.

During Bill Clinton’s second term, when the economy was strong — but particularly from December 1998 to February 1999, when he was impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate. This included 13-point Democratic advantages in December 1998 and January 1999 and an 11-point edge in February 1999.

Near the end of George H.W. Bush’s term, beginning in the summer of 1992 after the Democratic convention that year, through the first full month of Clinton’s presidency in 1993. Clinton defeated the incumbent Bush in the November 1992 election by tying him to the struggling economy.