Is This the Objective?


For what I believe is the first time in thirty years, in late 2021 Gallup found that the percentage of Americans who considered themselves Republicans or leaned Republican exceed the percentage who considered themselves Democrats or leaned Democratic:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On average, Americans’ political party preferences in 2021 looked similar to prior years, with slightly more U.S. adults identifying as Democrats or leaning Democratic (46%) than identified as Republicans or leaned Republican (43%).

However, the general stability for the full-year average obscures a dramatic shift over the course of 2021, from a nine-percentage-point Democratic advantage in the first quarter to a rare five-point Republican edge in the fourth quarter.

These results are based on aggregated data from all U.S. Gallup telephone surveys in 2021, which included interviews with more than 12,000 randomly sampled U.S. adults.

Gallup asks all Americans it interviews whether they identify politically as a Republican, a Democrat or an independent. Independents are then asked whether they lean more toward the Republican or Democratic Party. The combined percentage of party identifiers and leaners gives a measure of the relative strength of the two parties politically.

Both the nine-point Democratic advantage in the first quarter and the five-point Republican edge in the fourth quarter are among the largest Gallup has measured for each party in any quarter since it began regularly measuring party identification and leaning in 1991.

Is that the progressives’ who control the party’s objective? To reduce the Democratic Party to a minority party, possibly a boutique party? That’s an enormous shift over a very short period. I presume their hope is that it’s transitory.

3 comments… add one
  • Andy Link

    Even accounting for the general low quality of modern polling, that is a remarkable change.

  • Jan Link

    Yes, a 14 pt swing is a remarkable change. However, having a binary choice of 2 political parties obscures what I believe is a huge subset of people dissatisfied with both parties. It’s the arbitrary ruthlessness, shown by the social progressives this past year, that has thoroughly turned off many to identify with the least despicable of the two parties – the Republicans. It doesn’t, though, imply any long term loyalty to the Republican party.

  • The other chart at the link illustrates that:

    The real story of the last 15 years is that BOTH parties have lost membership with an increased number dissatisfied with both.

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