I wrote here about the fact that Gallup’s current polling finds, for the first time at least since 1992, that more Americans identify as Republicans than as Democrats. Yesterday the Wall Street Journal noted that this trend is consistent among various polls:
Beneath the headline results in many polls, something unusual has turned up with big implications for politics: More voters are calling themselves Republicans than Democrats, suggesting that the GOP has its first durable lead in party identification in more than three decades.
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In combined NBC polls this year, Republicans lead by 2 percentage points over Democrats, 42% to 40%, when voters were asked which party they identified with. That compares with Democratic leads of 6 points in 2020, 7 points in 2016 and 9 points in 2012.
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Gallup also found more voters identifying as Republican than Democratic, by 3 points in its July-to-September surveys. It was the first time that the GOP had an advantage in the third quarter before a presidential election in Gallup surveys dating to 1992.
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Pew Research Center found the GOP with a 1-point lead this spring in an extensive, 5,600-person poll it conducted to create benchmarks for its other surveys. As with Gallup and NBC polls, each party’s share of voters included people who call themselves independents but also say they consistently lean toward one party.
So this clearly is not a one-off polling fluke. Given the Republicans’ current resurgence in party ID, it is a little hard to see why they aren’t doing better in the polls, especially since, as the Journal article points out, voters say they trust Republicans more on the economy and immigration.
What this all means, I think, is that the Democrats’ gaslighting the failures of the Biden/Harris administration, combined with over-the-top demonization of Republicans, has mostly failed. People have tuned out the New York Times, CNN, the late-night comedians, etc. Those diehard Democratic loyalists no doubt play a valuable role for their party; they keep the Democrats’ base in line and fired up. But I think they have lost whatever ability they once had to influence the rest of us.
