Poll: More Americans Identify as Republicans than Democrats for First Time in Decades

A woman wearing a hat with GOP supporting stickers smiles during a campaign rally for U.S.
Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty

More Americans identify as Republicans than Democrats at this point in the election season for the first time in decades, a Gallup poll reveals.

Not only did 48 percent of respondents say they either identify as Republicans or are leaning Republican for the upcoming election — compared to just 45 percent who identified as Democrats — Gallup analysts also said that “nearly all” measures that have shown some relationship to past presidential election outcomes are favoring the GOP as well.

“By 46 percent to 41 percent, Americans say the Republican Party is better able than the Democratic Party to address what they think is the most important problem facing the country,” Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones wrote. “The top issues Americans currently name as the most important are ones that tend to favor the GOP, including the economy (24 percent), immigration (22 percent), the government (17 percent) and inflation (15 percent).”

The last time that even the same number of Americans identified as Republican and Democrat in the third quarter of an election year (July to September) was in 2004 — the year that former President George W. Bush won his second term.

Even when only 43 percent of respondents identified with Republicans compared to the Democrats’ 46 percent in 2016, former President Donald Trump was still successful in his bid for office.

A graph of the data shared by Republican political consultant Frank Luntz showed how Republicans have won in the past, even with an even or disadvantaged playing field according to Gallup’s third-quarter poll:

“My heart. I love this so much,” wrote Republican voter registration activist Scott Presler:

“If this is accurate the polls are REALLY underestimating Trump,” replied another X user. “You always see D+ 3 or 5 polls. You never see R+3 polls”:

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.