GOP candidates have struggled a bit to find positions on Russia and international affairs they can be consistent on and that GOP voters want
The shift from the Reagan party to today is striking, but we might consider the future in which the GOP is America first, isolationist.
This comment by @StuPolitics prompted me to share data from my @MULawPoll _National_ data on opinion concerning Ukraine aid and the US role in the world.
“It really is amazing how quickly the GOP position on foreign policy/int’l relations has flipped. It has gone from tough against the USSR to soft and squishy against Russia.” — @StuPolitics
On aid to Ukraine, the balance of opinion hasn’t moved much since Nov. The largest group, 40-45%, says we are giving about the right amount, some 30-35% say too much and just under 25% say not enough aid.
The partisan divide though is pretty strong but also stable. Reps most likely to say too much, Dems least and inds in the middle. Roughly half Reps and Rep leaners say we are giving too much aid to Ukraine
Note the Lean Reps are slightly more anti-aid than Reps. More on that below.
We’ve also asked @MULawPoll respondents about the US role in the world.
Most say it is better for the future of the country if we play an active role in the world, 55-60%, with 40-45% saying stay out of world affairs. A little tightening on this since Nov. 2022.
When we look at the “stay out of world affairs” by party ID, those independents who lean Rep and pure independents jump to the top of the chart as the most isolationist, at 58-64%
Reps are less so, though still at near 50%
And Lean Dems are about 40%, with Dems under 30%
Back to @StuPolitics comment, consider the international successes of nuclear arms reduction under Reagan, collapse of USSR under GHWBush and the seeming spread of democracy under Clinton.
The last 23 years have not had much to claim as big success stories for either party.
Those negative views of the US role among independents and leaners (esp Rep leaners) represent an opportunity for “isolationism” to grow, most likely in GOP but possibly with Dems too
Leadership can shape these views, exploit them, or follow the crowd. It ain’t the 1980s no more.
Gallup has an update on partisanship trends today. Links at end of this thread
I want to address the “leaned” vs “unleaded” party issue. Do “partisans” include independents who lean to a party, or not. Similarly, does “independents” include leaners or not, a how it matters
Gallup question wording is slightly different from the wording many academics use. “In politics as of today” vs “generally speaking” has modest difference but not the issue I care about which is how much difference is there between leaners and partisans.
Rep leaners are 11% and Dem leaners 13%. That close symmetry has been pretty stable. You get more partisans (obviously) if you include leaners as partisans, and more independents if you call them independents. The Gallup headline is based on calling them independent.
The “academic” question wording also asks partisans if they are “strong” or “not very strong” (ie “weak”) partisans. Here you also see 11-12% are weak & just under 20% are strong for each party.
Here are Gallup’s party ID trends since 2004, with leaners separate from partisans or pure independents.
How do these groups differ?
Some claim leaners are “really partisans”. That isn’t right.
They are more partisan than pure independents, but not as partisan as those who pick a party on the 1st question. I know nuance is hard, but leaners are indeed leaners and not committed partisans.
You also see lack of partisan commitment in the “someone else” and “wouldn’t vote” percentages that rise to the middle of the PID scales.
Also note how “weak” are different from “strong” partisans. Sometimes less partisan than lean, sometimes not.
Here is Biden approval by partisan lean and strength. Similar to the vote choice above, though Reps and lean Rep are quite similarly negative, and “weak Reps” a little more approving. More monotonic w Dem strength.
Here is a comparison of favorably to Trump and to Biden by Party ID with leaners.
Both partisans and leaners equally despise the other party’s guy.
But note in both parties leaners are less favorable to their party’s guy than are partisans.
Negative partisanship is strong.
Another big difference is attention to politics. More partisan means more attention, with pure independents especially less attentive, though “weak” partisans are close to pure inds
Among other things this means leaners & weak are slower to pick up on issues and candidates
It’s easy to focus on size of each group. Inds tend to grow in non-election years, then decline close to elections
But “are they independent or hidden partisans” is important & the answer is learners are in between. Less party loyalty in votes than partisans, but clearly lean.
In an election, partisans vote w party >90% but leaners typically in the 80s. They can also push that up or down depending on the candidates. They aren’t “swing voters” but that lower loyalty and potential for more or less loyalty is important in election outcomes.
Links to Gallup trends in partisanship, showing 49% “independent” but that includes leaners!
The tables are great and go back to 2004. Also have table w leaners as partisans. 43R-43D-14 Ind
This Axios story is misleading. It combines independents who lean to a party with “purely” inds. Dem & Rep are modestly down, leaners up a bit, pure Ind still low teens. See full data 2004-23 below. Leaners vote w party but less than partisans
I don’t care for the WaPo headline. These aren’t “independents who vote party” but people who say they are independents AND who say they lean to a party and mostly vote that way, but less so than partisans, more so than independents who don’t lean.
Most important just look at the full data and there are not sharp or sudden shifts. Relative stability over 19 years with some modest but important shifts (a bit more leaners, bit fewer partisans) and little change in pure independents.
March 20 marks the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War. Initially, the war had substantial majority support, saying it was “worth it”. But that fell rapidly and by July 2004 as many said it was “not worth it”. By 2008 we reached near 65% not worth it, which is little changed.
Three aspects of Iraq War opinion. (Created 11/5/2007).
Republicans and Democrats have very different issue concerns in 2022.
GOP pollster Bill McInturff nails it, and my @MULawPoll data in Wisconsin agrees. Reps care about one set of issues, Dems a different set, with little overlap.
If you see Republicans talking about border security/illegal immigration and Dems talking climate change, just look here to see why Compare “Crime”, “Crime in your community” and “Gun violence” for sharp differences by party. Also note less concern by all for crime in your community.
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.
Kaiser Net Party ID TrendNBC Net Party ID Trend
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.
Kaiser Party ID TrendMarist Party ID TrendNBC Hart/Public Opinion Strategies Party ID TrendQuinnipiac Party ID TrendKaiser Net Party ID TrendMarist Net Party ID TrendNBC Net Party ID TrendQuinnipiac Net Party ID Trend
Abortion policy, issue concern and enthusiasm to vote
Are abortion policy preferences linked to motivation to vote and to concern about the issue of abortion, and what role does partisanship play? I assess this using data from the Marquette Law School Poll of 803 Wisconsin registered voters, conducted June 14-20, 2022, a week before the US Supreme Court struck down the Roe v Wade decision on June 24, but well after the draft opinion in this case became public in May.
There has been a consistent majority of Wisconsin registered voters who favor legal abortions in all or most cases, and a minority who say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. Surveys over the past decade have shown very little change in opinion, as shown in Table 1.
Poll dates
Legal in all cases
Legal in most cases
Illegal in most cases
Illegal in all cases
9/13-16/12
26
34
23
13
9/27-30/12
25
35
23
12
10/11-14/12
25
34
25
12
10/25-28/12
28
32
23
12
10/21-24/13
26
36
25
10
10/23-26/14
24
34
24
15
7/11-15/18
27
36
18
11
9/12-16/18
26
36
21
9
10/24-28/18
26
29
24
14
2/19-23/20
18
37
22
15
10/26-31/21
23
38
23
11
6/14-20/22
27
31
24
11
Table 1: Trend in abortion policy preference, 2012-2022
There is little difference in enthusiasm to vote except among those who think abortion should be illegal in most cases. Those in the two pro-abortion categories, and those with the most anti-abortion preference are all equally motivated to vote. This gives no support for the idea that the abortion issue would be uniquely motivating to pro-abortion voters. Of course this could change, but the draft opinion does not appear to have motivated supporters of abortion to greater political engagement. Rather those who say abortion should be illegal in most cases are the more enthusiastic to vote in these data.
Abortion policy preference
Very enthusiastic
Less enthusiastic
DK/Ref
Legal in all cases
56
42
2
Legal in most cases
56
42
1
Illegal in most cases
68
32
0
Illegal in all cases
57
43
0
Table 2: Enthusiasm to vote by abortion policy preference
Abortion policy preference and concern about the issue
Those who think abortion should always be legal or always be illegal are the most concerned about abortion policy, while those in the middle categories of legal in most cases or illegal in most cases are substantially less concerned.
Those with the strongest anti-abortion preference express more concern for abortion policy than do the strongest pro-abortion advocates by a small margin.
Abortion policy preference
Very concerned
Less concerned
DK/Ref
Legal in all cases
66
34
0
Legal in most cases
53
46
1
Illegal in most cases
51
42
7
Illegal in all cases
73
27
0
Table 3: Concern about the issue of abortion by abortion policy preference
Age and abortion preference and concern
There is virtually no relationship between age and abortion preference. Only those 70 years old or older are a bit less supportive of abortion than the other age groups.
Age
Legal in all or most
Illegal in all or most
Don’t know
18-29
62
38
1
30-39
60
30
6
40-49
60
34
5
50-59
60
35
5
60-69
57
35
5
70+
51
40
7
Table 4: Abortion policy preference by age
Concern over the abortion issue is also not associated with age. Concern fluctuates across age groups but is not consistently higher among the young than it is among their elders. These results suggest it is unlikely that the abortion issue will be uniquely motivating for younger voters in the fall elections.
Age
Very concerned
Less concerned
DK/Ref
18-29
62
38
0
30-39
46
54
0
40-49
55
43
3
50-59
66
33
1
60-69
55
41
4
70+
64
32
4
Table 5: Concern about abortion policy by age
Partisanship and concern about abortion policy
Democrats say they are more concerned about the abortion issue, followed by Republicans while independents express less concern about the issue.
Party ID
Very concerned
Less concerned
DK/Ref
Republican
57
41
2
Independent
49
49
2
Democrat
73
26
1
Table 6: Abortion policy concern by party identification
While Democrats express more concern about abortion, they are less likely than Republicans to say they are very enthusiastic about voting in November.
Party ID
Very enthusiastic
Less enthusiastic
DK/Ref
Republican
74
26
0
Independent
49
49
1
Democrat
60
39
1
Table 7: Enthusiasm to vote by party identification
Enthusiasm to vote by party and abortion policy preference
Enthusiasm to vote is highest among Republicans, and equally so for pro- and anti-abortion policy preferences. Among independents, those opposed to abortion are more enthusiastic than those supporting abortion. Among Democrats who are pro-abortion, enthusiasm is less than among Republicans. There are very few Democrats who are anti-abortion, but among this group enthusiasm is low, about the same as for pro-abortion independents.
Party ID
Abortion policy
Very enthusiastic
Less enthusiastic
Republican
Legal all or most cases
73
27
Republican
Illegal all or most cases
73
27
Independent
Legal all or most cases
45
53
Independent
Illegal all or most cases
57
43
Democrat
Legal all or most cases
61
38
Democrat
Illegal all or most cases
48
52
Table 8: Enthusiasm to vote by abortion policy preference and party identification
Conclusion
A week before the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade, Wisconsin Republicans were more motivated to vote than Democrats, and pro-abortion policy preference was not associated with greater enthusiasm to vote. Enthusiasm was higher among those saying abortion should be illegal in most cases while quite similar among those saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and for those saying it should be illegal in all cases.
The Court’s now official decision overturning Roe, and the subsequent political campaigns on the issue, may shift motivation and participation, but the leak of the draft of that opinion in May did not produce a measurable mobilization among those favoring abortion rights, contrary to some speculation.
Public opinion substantially favors allowing concealed carry of handguns with a permit or license required. This is true of both a constitutional right under the Second Amendment and as provided by state laws. In contrast, there is substantial majority opposition to laws allowing concealed carry without a licensing requirement, or “permitless” carry.
Nationwide, 66% of those with an opinion favor a Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment includes a right to possess a gun outside the home. For state laws, 62% favor laws that allow concealed carry of handguns with a license and 38% are opposed.
In contrast, permitless concealed carry without a license requirement is supported nationwide by 19% and opposed by 81%.
In the 25 states with permitlesss concealed carry laws, a minority of 28% of adults favor such laws, while 72% are opposed to them, based on a May 2022 Marquette Law School national survey.
State surveys in Texas and Tennessee, states with unlicensed concealed carry laws, found 34% and 39% favored these laws, respectively, with 59% opposed in both states.
State gun laws
In the following analysis, state gun laws are grouped into four categories.
Twenty-five states have adopted laws allowing “permitless” concealed carry, requiring no license or permit to have a concealed weapon. (This includes Alabama, Indiana and Ohio that have adopted such a law that will go into effect by Jan. 1, 2023.)
Ten states have “shall issue” laws that give no discretion over issuing a license or permit to an applicant meeting the criteria specified by law.
Seven states have “shall issue” laws that allow some discretion over issuing a license or permit if the applicant is judged to raise some public safety concerns.
Eight states and the District of Columbia have “may issue” laws that give authorities greater lattitude in determining when to issue a license or permit.
Classifications of states were based on these websites which were checked for consistency:
The Marquette Law School Poll surveyed 1,004 adults nationwide May 9-19, 2022. The margin of error is +/-3.9 percentage points. The survey focused on the Supreme Court and included three items on opnion about the Second Amendment and concealed carry laws. The survey began before the mass shooting that killed 10 people in Buffalo, NY, and was completed before the mass shooting that killed 21 in a Uvalde, TX elementary school.
Full results of the Marquette Law School poll are available here.
Second Amendment
The Supreme Court is set to decide New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which addresses whether the Second Amendment protects the right to possess a gun outside the home.
The survey asked
Do you favor or oppose the following possible future Supreme Court decisions, or haven’t you heard enough about this to have an opinion?: Rule that the 2nd Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” protects the right to carry a gun outside the home.
Among those with an opinion, 66% favor such a ruling and 34% are opposed.
Opinion on this extension of Second Amendment interpretation to include guns outside the home is more supportive in states with less restrictive gun laws, with large majorities favoring expanded rights to possess a gun, and less supportive in the most restrictive states, where opinion is evenly divided. These results are shown in Table 1.
State gun laws
Favor
Oppose
Permitless
77
23
Shall issue
70
30
Shall issue w limits
64
36
May issue
48
52
Table 1: Favor or oppose Supreme Court ruling that the 2nd Amendment right to ‘keep and bear arms’ protects the right to carry a gun outside the home, by state gun laws,among those with an opinion, May 2022
Concealed carry with a license
The Marquette Law School poll also asked about laws concerning concealed carry. Respondents were asked about licensed concealed carry laws:
Do you favor or oppose laws that allow most people to obtain a license to carry concealed handguns?
These laws were favored by 62% and opposed by 38% nationwide.
Opinion by state gun laws finds over 60% majorities in favor of such laws in most states, and with a narrow majority in favor in the states with the most restrictive laws concerning concealed carry, as shown in Table 2.
State gun laws
Favor
Oppose
Permitless
65
35
Shall issue
66
34
Shall issue w limits
64
36
May issue
53
47
Table 2: Do you favor or oppose laws that allow most people to obtain a license to carry concealed handguns, by state gun laws, May 2022
Concealed carry without a license (“Permitless”)
Half of the states now allow concealed carry without requiring a license or a permit. Respondents were asked
Do you favor or oppose laws that allow most people to carry concealed handguns without needing to obtain a license?
Opinion on this law is much more opposed than for licensed concealed carry. Nineteen percent favor unlicensed carry laws, while 81% are opposed to such laws.
Table 3 shows opinion on these laws by state gun laws. It is striking that even in the states that allow permitless concealed carry, 72% of adults are opposed to such a law. Opposition to these laws inceases in states with more restrictive gun laws.
State gun laws
Favor
Oppose
Permitless
28
72
Shall issue
19
81
Shall issue w limits
16
84
May issue
10
90
Table 3: Do you favor or oppose laws that allow most people to carry concealed handguns without needing to obtain a license?, by state gun laws, May 2022
Comparison with other national and state polls
National polls
In the Pew American Trends Panel wave 87, April 5-11, 2021 respondents were asked
Please indicate whether you would favor or oppose the following proposals about gun policy: Allowing people to carry concealed guns without a permit
In the Pew survey, permitless carry was favored by 20% and opposed by 79%, with 1% refusing to answer.
The May 2022 Marquette Law School national survey question asks
Do you favor or oppose laws that allow most people to carry concealed handguns without needing to obtain a license?
In the MU Law Poll permitless carry was favored by 19% and opposed by 81%.
Pew does not release the state code as part of the public dataset, so it is not possible to merge the Pew data with state laws.
State polls
This is not a comprehensive collection of state polls on unlicensed concealed carry but is illustrative of state opinion in one “shall issue” state and two states with permitless concealed carry laws.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a “shall issue” state that does require a license for concealed carry. The Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin registered voters has asked about both licensed and unlicensed concealed carry. The results for licensed concealed carry are shown in Table 4 and for unlicensed carry in Table 5.
Poll dates
Favor
Oppose
Don’t know
Refused
1/21-24/16
63
31
5
1
1/8-12/20
70
25
5
0
10/26-31/21
62
29
8
1
4/19-24/22
69
26
5
0
Table 4: Do you favor or oppose Wisconsin’s current law allowing residents to obtain a license to carry concealed handguns?, Wisconsin registered voters
Poll dates
Favor
Oppose
Don’t know
Refused
10/26-31/21
20
76
3
0
4/19-24/22
16
82
2
0
Table 5: Do you favor or oppose a proposed law that would allow residents to carry concealed handguns without needing to obtain a license?, Wisconsin registered voters
Texas
Texas allows concealed carrry without requiring a license.
A Univerity of Texas/Texas Tribune poll conducted in April 2021 asked
Should adults be allowed to carry handguns in public without licenses or permits?
This was supported by 34% and opposed by 59% with 6% saying the don’t know.
Recently I tweeted about shifts in aggregate party ID, following Gallup’s release of shifts in their polls. I find 4 other pollsters showing the D-R margin tightening, though not as much as Gallup. Blog version: pollsandvotes.com/?p=217
But what about individual change?
For tracking individual change we need panel data. Thanks to Democracy Fund and Voter Study Group we have a public panel from 2011 through 2020.
I prefer fresh cross sections for tracking aggregate shifts, but panels are THE thing for individual change.
See (or rather hear) the @FiveThirtyEight podcast of Jan 31 for a discussion that includes issues about party leaners that we’ll see in about one tweet here. How much more movable are leaners? Here strength of partisanship matters.
VSG uses the “Michigan” party id item: “Generally speaking do you think of yourself as…” followed by “strong or not so strong” or by “lean to Dem or Rep” to make a 7 point scale.
Below is the 2016-2020 panel turnover. Rows 2016, columns 2020.
Strong partisans are different from any of the 5 middle groups. Strong partisans are 90% likely to still be in same category after 4 years. The middle 5 groups are about 64% likely to be same category.
If you think party is forever, you are thinking about strong partisans.
Weak partisans (“not very strong”) either stay there (62% or 66%) or are more likely to shift into strong (19% or 20%) though 15-20% scatters toward the other party. These are pretty partisan but 1/5 weaken or shift direction. Similar for both D & R.
Leaners D (61%) & R (66%) stay leaners but some (D 12%, R 14%) jump to strong for the party. About as many (D 14%, R 13%) shift to pure independent. Add weak and about 20% become stronger partisans, 12-14 pure independent and 5%D and 2%R shift to other party
And pure independents also remain 62% unchanged. Those who shifted in this 2016-20 period were a bit more likely to shift toward R, though shifting into lean was most common (D10%, R16%)
This seems consistent w Trump attracting previously less involved voters, esp pure Inds.
Party is sticky & especially so for strong partisans. Leaners are more apt to move toward their party but a few move away. Inds also stick as much as weak & leaners, but were drawn to GOP a little more in 2016-20
There was a lot of symmetry in the movements but a slight GOP edge.
My new @MULawPoll national release is out. Link at end of this post. Here I want to highlight what I think are the most informative bits. Others have tweeted the toplines for DeSantis v Biden and Trump v Biden but the goal isn’t 2024 but the GOP today.
Trump remains very popular w Republicans, 74% fav, 25% unfav. That is formidable support. DeSantis, not nearly so well known is 52%-11% w Reps but 38% haven’t heard enough. Pence at 59-31 is net positive but only 10% lack an opinion. DeSantis at 5-1 fav, Trump 3-1, Pence 2-1.
Republican support for a Trump run in 2024 is 63%, w 37% not wanting him to run. So 74% are fav to Trump, and a smaller 63% want him to run. Still a solid majority but some hesitancy about a 2024 rerun even among those favorable to him.
Trump has defined doubts about the accuracy of the 2020 vote for Republicans, and 73% say they are not confident in the election (and 71% of those who lean Rep). That issue defines Trump in the party, and the 1 in 4 Reps who disagree are quite unfavorable to Trump.
Favorability to Trump w Reps + Rep leaners is 29% among those confident in the vote, and 88% among the not confident. For Pence, there is no relationship at all between confidence & favs. DeSantis fav is more tied to confidence, but lots of “confidents” are DK for him.
Clearly Trump retains a very strong base of support w Republican voters, who also overwhelmingly adopt his claims about the 2020 election and are very favorable toward him. But support for a rematch with Biden is lower than his fav rating.
Let’s turn back to the head to heads v Biden, but look at the party crosstab. Trump gets 77% of Rep votes, 73% of leaners. DeSantis gets 81% of Reps and 75% of leaners. Trump might well win a primary battle, but GOP voters would support DeSantis at least as much as Trump v Biden.
Takeaway: Trump remains the dominate figure in the GOP, but at least one alternative, DeSantis, performs as well v Biden, gains as much support w GOP and has a better fav-to-unfav ratio in GOP as Trump (But lots of DK) It is a long time to 2024, but how GOP divides sets the stage.
Links to full survey release from @mulawpoll national survey of adults, Jan 10-21, 2022.
So I, as many of you, woke up Monday to Gallup’s latest party ID numbers with a sharp move towards GOP. The full article is here and I strongly recommend reading it all. It is more nuanced than Twitter headlines might sound.
Let’s look at 4 other high frequency live phone polls from Marist, Quinnipiac, Kaiser, and NBC/Wall Street Journal since 2014.
First Ds and Rs w/o leaners, same scales.
Now the Dem minus Rep margin since 2014, again without leaners.
Finally, the percent who are neither Dems nor Reps. This is 100-Rep-Dem, so it includes Inds, other, dk, refused. Polls aren’t consistent in reporting these, so just the Not D and Not R seems the most consistent practice here.
As with Gallup, the Dem minus Rep margin has tightened in all 3 sets of polls here. Gallup has Ds & Rs both at 28% unleaned in both 3rd & 4th quarter, and Ds had 30-25 and 31-26 in 1st 2 qtrs. Their leaned party has Rs ahead in 4th qtr.
Leaned party is not readily available for some polling organizations, so I’ve used the unleaned which are comparable across all. Shifts among leaners are not uncommon but can clearly tilt the balance. It would be nice if all reported both unleaned and leaned every time.
The big headline is right: The balance of Ds vs Rs has shifted over 2021 to a smaller D advantage. We see this in all 4 sets of surveys.
Do note that inds+other rise and fall with the election cycle, so both parties tend to decline between elections as the non-partisans rise.
But the parties aren’t losing supporters at the same rate. In 2021 it was the Dems who lost support a bit faster than the Reps.
Bottom line is the 4 polls I’ve collected for 2014-2022, QPoll, Marist, KFF and NBC all agree the Dem-Rep margin has tightened but all still have at least a small D advantage. Trending down, so that could change but it hasn’t yet, though for Gallup it has crossed over.
Some technical details
There are two different wordings that are most often used for measuring party identification. The “Michigan” wording is from the UM Survey Research Center work used in The American Voter, a cornerstone of political science:
Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, or what?
In contrast the long-standing wording in Gallup polls is
In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?
(Modern surveys randomize the order of parties in the questions.)
Both items are often followed by a strength question (especially for Michigan wordings for partisans) and a lean question for independents (both styles do this most of the time).
Quinnipiac and NBC/WSJ use the Michigan wording and Kaiser uses the Gallup wording. I’ve not been able to find the wording used by Marist as they don’t publish the full survey instrument including demographics on their website.
In the 1980s and 1990s there was a debate in political science about whether party identification moved in response to party performance or issue positions or other “short term forces”. These debates, among other things, considered the different dynamic properties of measures from the two question wordings.
Abramson and Ostrom 1991 argued that the Gallup wording produced more short-term variation and should be used with extreme caution. Seems like this still holds. https://t.co/gSpsqqH2wQ— Joshua J. Dyck (@drjjdyck) January 18, 2022
I would say that research that is crucially dependent on the dynamic properties of the different measures should consider Abramson and Ostrom’s warning, though I might dissent from “extreme caution” and say “with full awareness of possible differences.” Their work was part of a debate over the responsiveness of partisanship and which measure was “really” capturing it. I’d say we aren’t too wrapped up in that issue these days. As the charts above show, both measures are showing similar trends, and for my purposes that seems the fundamental point.
Given the rise in partisan polarization it might be time to update the comparative analysis of these two wordings, but that isn’t my task today.
