The net balance of party identification has shifted in the Republican direction in 2022, by a little in Kaiser and Marist polls, but a lot in NBC and Quinnipiac polls. One might debate the size but the trend is clear. What it means is perhaps not quite as clear.

The party balance might most obviously shift because people are moving away from the Democratic Party and (likely) into independents, and (likely) from independents and into Republican. In short, real change in the margin.

Democratic approval of Biden has fallen over the year, while Republicans are united in disapproval of Biden (almost unanimously). Inflation is a dominant issue which favors Republicans and damages Democrats. And a Democratic congress has failed to deliver as much as many Democrats had hoped for in early 2021. That is all a recipe for marginal shifts in the party balance, especially at the boundaries between “independent” and either partisan group.

Or the shifts could be because Democrats are “discouraged” by the national political environment (largely for the same reason as above) and are just less anxious to talk to pollsters about politics. In this story the “real” party balance hasn’t changed but Democrats just don’t feel like talking about it. This is cold comfort to Democrats though, since discouraged Democrats not talking to pollsters are also likely Democrats less likely to vote in November, which is also damaging to party prospects.

The recent changes in margin between Democrats and Republican identification are rather large in comparison to shifts we’ve seen earlier in the time series for each pollster. Such trends could reverse before the elections, but time is growing short. And Biden’s job approval has shown no signs of improving, indeed his average continues to slowly decline, now below 40% approval.

Races for Senate and governor may hinge on candidates and the campaigns, so these partisan trends are not the whole story but they add to the national forces that are a drag on Democrats everywhere and a boost to Republicans.

Notes: I look here are “unleaned” party identification, those who say they are “Republicans” or “Democrats”, not including those who say they are independents who lean to either party. This is in part due to limits in the party measures reported by pollsters, with “unleaned” party being the lowest common denominator.

I also use high quality telephone polls that do NOT weight their samples to party ID. This has historically been the “standard” party measure. Most online polls, including Pew, now weight their samples to a party balance estimated from recent telephone polls, which makes tracking trends with samples weighted to party a complicated issue.

Here are the trends for Kaiser, Marist, NBC and Quinnipiac, first for each party and then for the net margin between the parties. Data include the latest polls as of July 5, 2022.