The Democratic party is shedding support from black and Hispanic voters in growing numbers that will challenge President Joe Biden’s re-election effort, a poll released Wednesday shows.
Among black Americans expressing a party preference, the Democratic lead over Republicans has dropped by almost 20 percent in barely three years, according to the Gallup survey.
The Democratic lead among Hispanic adults and adults aged 18 to 29 also slid by almost the same degree, leaving the party with only a modest advantage as it readies for the challenges of a 2024 campaign.
Gallup found the loss is only partially offset by modest gains among college-educated Americans, both with or without college degrees, outlining in detail:
- The Democratic Party’s wide lead over Republicans in Black Americans’ party preferences has shrunk by nearly 20 points over the past three years.
- Democrats’ leads among Hispanic adults and adults aged 18 to 29 have slid nearly as much, resulting in Democrats’ holding only a modest edge among both groups.
- Whereas Democrats were at parity with Republicans among men as recently as 2009, and among non-college-educated adults as recently as 2019, they are now in the red with both groups.
“These shifts in the party affiliation of key subgroups provide the demographic backstory for how Democrats went from enjoying significant leads over Republicans between 2012 and 2021, to slight deficits in 2022 and 2023,” the research company said in a statement accompanying the survey.
“The 27% of US adults identifying as Democrats and the 43% identifying as or leaning Democratic are both new lows in Gallup’s trend.”
The Gallup data comes from combined surveys in 2023 among 12,145 adults. As a whole, there is a margin of error of one percentage point.
For the smaller groups, however, the margins of error are larger, between two percentage points and four percentage points.
Read the full Gallup poll results and analysis here