41% Of Voters Consider Themselves Democrats
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Democrats, Independents, RepublicansMeanwhile, 31.5% consider themselves Republicans and 27.5% are unaffiliated…but we’ll just call them Independents because that sounds better.
That’s the latest party ID findings from Rasmussen, and it just speaks to how damaged the Republican brand is this season.
Perhaps Kerry losing in 2004 was a blessing in disguise for the Dems? After all, I can’t imagine him having an easy time cleaning up Bush’s mess with a Republican led house and senate…and it may not have resulted in the massive swing we saw in the 2006 Congressional races.
Here’s some more history of past party ID numbers and why getting over 40% is particularly significant…
This marks the fifth straight month that the number of Democrats has been between 41.0% and 41.7%. During that same period, the number of Republicans has also stabilized, ranging only from 31.4% to 32.1%.Prior to February of this year, neither party had ever reached the 39% level of support. Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based upon telephone interviews with approximately 15,000 adults per month and has been doing so since November 2002.
In 2004, the Democrats began the year with a 2.3 percentage point edge over the GOP. That grew to 4.0 points by March before moving in the Republican direction for the rest of the year. By Election Day in 2004, the edge for Democrats was a mere 1.6 percentage points.
In 2006, the Democrats began the year with just a 1.6 percentage point advantage. That grew to 6.1 percentage points by November.
It really is wild that the party ID gap is now at 10%. I don’t think many appreciate how big that gap is, and while not every Democrat will vote for Obama this season, one has to think that enough Republicans will cross over to effectively nullify any Dem swing towards McCain.
The big question mark nor are the Independents. Who will they trust?
More as it develops…
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Democrats, Independents, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:00 pm
“Perhaps Kerry losing in 2004 was a blessing in disguise for the Dems? After all, I can’t imagine him having an easy time cleaning up Bush’s mess with a Republican led house and senate…and it may not have resulted in the massive swing we saw in the 2006 Congressional races.”
Mr. G; If you’re simply talkin about winners & losers, like rootin for your fav team against their arch rivals, than yes, it’s a blessing. But if Kerry was in office the country, indeed the world, would be a different place. In the end you’re correct. The economy would be in the same place and we wouldn’t have the G.W. to kick around for our troubles, so yes, the emotional swing against the Repubs would’ve been nullified.
Of course, the SCOTUS would look a lota different, and so would the spending for the war. But now do we swing so far to the left that the middle loses again?