The Divided Electorate
Democrats lost their “mojo” back in the 1980’s when their share of registered voters plummeted from 50 to 30 percent. They had a small resurgence during the Trump presidency. Although Trumpism and MAGA extremism appears to have driven some voters away from the Republican Party initially, the longer term impact is not clear. The Republican Party is not imploding and, if anything, the data suggest there may be a slight shift away from registering as a Democrat.
Since the 1980s, the parties have jockeyed for dominance as the electorate has become increasingly divided. This has lead to numerous very close Congressional and Presidential elections. Given these circumstances, small movements in the leanings of the electorate can determine an election. I examined party registration nationally and by state to see if any shifts have been occurring that would have implications for the 2024 presidential election [1].
National Registration and Party Affiliation Trends
One measure that provides some insights into how the electorate is likely to vote, is the number of registrants by party. Thirty-two states ask voters their party affiliation or if they are an independent at registration. As not every state registers by party, researchers have often used survey data to measure party affiliation.
Survey data shows the Democrats share of the electorate dropped substantially in the 1980’s and now they have only a small size advantage. Gallup has been surveying voters regarding party affiliation since the 1930s as shown in Exhibits 1 and 2 [2]. The Democrats were much larger than the Republican Party until the 1980s. From 1977 to 1987, their share of the electorate fell by about 20 percentage points. Since 1987, the Democrat’s share of the electorate has ranged from 25 to 36 percent while the Republican’s share has ranged from about 22 to 37 percent.
Exhibit 1: Self-Reported Party Affiliation: 1937-2003 [3]
As Exhibit 2 shows, over the past 2 decades, the Democrats generally have held a small size advantage over the Republicans. Both parties’ participation rates have trended very slightly downward as there has been a shift in the share of respondents saying they are Independents. This long term pattern of declines in both the Democrat and Republican Parties is mirrored by a slight upward trend in Independents shown in Exhibit 3.
Exhibit 2: Self -Reported Party Affiliation : 2004- 2023
Exhibit 3: Self -Reported Independents: 2004-2023
At the start of the Trump presidency, party affiliation diverged from the long-term trend. As Exhibit 2 shows, the percentage of the electorate identifying themselves as Republicans plunged by 8 points to 22 percent, it lowest modern era share. In Exhibit 3, we see a bump up in Independents at the start of the Trump’s presidency as people left the Republican Party.
But this drop in Republican affiliation was short lived, By 2020, the Republican and Democratic shares were equal at 27 percent each and, in the past 2 years, the percentage reporting they are Independents has declined. As of January, 2023, the Gallup data shows that 30 percent of those surveyed identified as Democrats or leaning Democrat while 27 percent favored the Republicans. Forty percent identified as Independents. Independents were evenly split between the two parties when asked to choose. With a nearly equally divided electorate and no strong trends in registration, the nation numbers really do little to inform where the 2024 election may be heading.
State Registration Trends
Similar to the national picture, voter registration by state does not provide clear insights as to where the country is going politically. However, it does provide some evidence of tilting away from the Democrats.
First, Exhibit 4 shows virtually every state that records registration by party saw an increase in voter registration since 2017. Only West Virginia and Rhode Island had registrations fall. Some states, such as Nevada, Utah, and Idaho had extraordinary large increases in voter registration, which introduced a very large segment of voters who were new to those states.
When we look at which party benefited by this rise in voter registration, the picture is mixed. Exhibit 4 color codes the cases where the Parties’ or Independent voters’ share of the electorate increased. These increases are color coded blue for Democrats, light red for Republicans, and green for Independents. Numerous states experienced two of the groups growing at the expense of the third group. Bolded states are battleground states for the 2024 election [4].
Exhibit 4: Changes in Voter Registration by State 2017-2022
Exhibit 5 summarizes the changes in registration in terms of the effects on the relative sizes of the parties. Yellow cases denote states that flipped the dominant party. The current dominant party is shown in the second column which is percentage point difference in the share of registrants between Democrats and Republicans. A positive percentage denotes the Democrats are the larger party and is colored blue while a negative percentage means the Republicans are the larger party and is colored light red.
Exhibit 5: Changes in Party Shares of Registrants by State, 2017-2022
There has been a slight shift to the Republican Party among states. Over the past 5 years, 6 states flipped the dominant party or went from equal shares (0%) to having a dominant party. Four of the 6 became Republican states and 2 became Democratic states. In addition, among the 26 states that maintained the same dominant party, 6 became more Republican and 4 became less Republican, That is, the Republican Party was the larger party 5 years and still is but its size margin over the Democrats either grew (they became more Republican) or shrunk (they became less Republican). Seven states became more Democratic and an additional 7 became less Democratic. The changes can be summarized as:
-
-
- No change 2
- Less Republican 4
- More Republican 6 + 4 flipped
- Less Democrat 7
- More Democrat 7+ 2 flipped
-
Many of the states were already squarely aligned with one party or the other and the change in the past 5 years only reenforced the dominance of the leading party in that state. For example, in California Democrats increase dominance over Republicans but they already had a 19-percentage point advantage in 2017 that grew to 23-percentage points in 2022. Similarly, Wyoming already was an intensely Republican state in which the party had a 49-percentage point advantage over Democrats in 2017 that grew to a 69-percentge point advantage in 2022. Growing its ranks in states in which a party already heavily dominates will not have much of an effect on election outcomes.
The 8 battleground states (Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania) also show very slight movement away from the Democrats. With only 8 states, it is difficult to generalize and almost every one of these states has their own story. In 2017, in the 8 battleground states the Democrats were the largest party in 5 of the states and the Republicans dominated in the remaining 3 states. In the past 5 years, 2 battleground states flipped their dominant party; Florida to the Republican Party and New Hampshire to the Democratic Party. Maine increased the share of the Democrats (becoming more Democratic) and Iowa increased the share of the Republicans (becoming more Republican). Arizona became less Republican and Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania became less Democratic.
Summary
For the past 20 years, the Democrats generally have held on to a small size lead over the Republicans among registered voters. At the national level, Democrats currently have a 3-percentage point advantage over Republicans among registered voters. While there have not been strong trends, party affiliation has declined slightly and registering as an Independent has increase slightly. The Republicans’ share of registered voters dramatically dropped at the start of the Trump presidency but has since returned to its pre-Trump level. The evidence suggests the Republican Party is keeping its members (or replacing those who left with new members) and if, anything, the Democrats are at greater risk of loosing ground than the Republicans.
Notes
[1] Used state administrative data on voter registration by party for 2022 and 2017 assembled by Ballotpedia at https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_affiliations_of_registered_voters
[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
[3] Created by Pew based on data collected by Gallup.
[4] 2024 Presidential Election Interactive map at https://www.240towin.com shows their current identification of battleground states.