More Voters are Identifying as Republicans. That Could Bode Ill for Democrats in November.

Imagine you are planning to run a few miles on a treadmill as part of your regular workout. You can do this with the treadmill in a level position, or you can set it at an incline. It isn’t hard to determine which would make for an easier session at the gym.

That’s the way that Bill McInturff, a veteran Republican pollster, described what he sees as the significance of data that shows Republicans now at parity with Democrats on party identification. “This is the under recognized game changer for 2024,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter, a few days ago. “Republicans competing on a level playing field.”

The data that McInturff was citing comes from surveys for NBC News that his firm, Public Opinion Strategies, has done jointly with the Democratic firm Hart Research Associates for many years. The slide he posted showed that, among registered voters, 41 percent now identify as Republicans, 40 percent as Democrats. In 2016, Democrats had an advantage of seven percentage points.

That split between Republicans and Democrats still leaves 19 percent of registered voters as independents. Some lean toward one of the two major parties; the remainder are true independents, capable of determining the outcome of an election.

In a subsequent telephone interview, McInturff expanded on his thinking. “The lines have crossed for the very first time in a long time and that’s a very big deal,” he said. “It’s not that Republicans are always going up, it’s that the Democrats are dropping [in party identification].”

The NBC survey numbers are not outliers. Pew Research Center released a sizable study of changes in party identification in April that showed a similar pattern: a seven-point Democratic advantage early on in Donald Trump’s presidency dropped to a one-point edge as of 2023. (The figures in both the Pew and NBC surveys do not refer to party registration, but instead to how people identify themselves politically when asked by pollsters.)

Democrats have made modest gains among some of their core supporters. People who identify as liberal say they are Democrats by larger numbers today than they were early in Trump’s presidency. The same is true for voters with postgraduate degrees and for White women between the ages of 18 and 39. Overall, however, voters who make up core parts of the Democratic coalition are identifying as Democrats in slightly reduced numbers.

More striking in the charts McInturff supplied are the changes among core Republican groups and others. The GOP advantage among self-identified conservatives has gone from a net of 52 points to a net of 68 points. Among voters in rural counties, the Republican margin has jumped from 18 points to 34 points.

Among men without college degrees, the Republican margin has gone from plus-six points to plus-20 points. In 2016, voters with no more than a high school degree were evenly split in their party identification. As of the end of last year, based on the NBC data, the Republicans enjoy an advantage of 17 points.

At a time when Democrats are worried about turnout and levels of support among non-White voters, the Pew study offers sobering data. Party identification among Black voters has dropped from a net Democratic margin of 83 points in 2016 to 71 points in 2023.

Something similar has happened among Hispanic voters, whose loyalty to the Democratic Party has been eroding. In NBC polling in 2016, the Democrats’ margin among these voters was plus-39 points. As of 2023, it was 26 points.

It is likely that several factors account for the changes. First is the degree to which Trump has realigned the Republican Party, and with it, the shape of the overall electorate.

The former president has drawn more White working-class voters into the GOP coalition. Those voters once were considered core elements of the Democratic coalition. The erosion began many years ago (recall the term “Reagan Democrats”), but it has accelerated during the Trump years.

The urban-rural split has widened significantly since Trump became a presidential candidate in 2015. Support in rural counties wasn’t enough to pull him across to victory in 2020, but if he wins in November, it will be in part because of big margins and big turnout in rural parts of swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

And then there is the erosion among Black and Hispanic voters noted earlier. Trump has big ambitions to boost his support among those voters, and the shifts in party identification give him some cause for optimism. His rally in the Bronx on Thursday was the latest indicator of his intention to compete for those voters – or at least pay lip service to the idea.

Recent polling on Black support for Trump has been mixed. Some polls with tiny sample sizes have shown him with 20 percent or more of the Black vote. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll suggested that the desire to vote is down sharply among Black voters compared with four years ago. It also showed that 74 percent of Black voters said they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for President Biden, while 14 percent said they would “definitely” or “probably” support Trump.

McInturff said he believes Trump is only part of the reason that allegiances have shifted in recent years. He sees dissatisfaction with Biden as a factor, too.

“This wouldn’t have happened if we were in the middle of a successful Democratic administration,” he said.

A recent CNN poll asked whether voters judged the Biden presidency as a success or a failure. In response, 61 percent said it has been a failure, while 39 percent called it a success. In contrast, 55 percent said they judged Trump’s presidency to have been a success.

Biden campaign officials say “Trump amnesia” – a phenomenon of people having a too-rosy memory for Trump’s tumultuous four years in office, as well as the economic downturn in the coronavirus era – is one reason the former president scored so much better. Their strategy is to change those perceptions through advertising, messaging and campaigning.

Whether it be Trump’s nomination of three conservative Supreme Court justices who provided the votes to overturn Roe v. Wade, his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, his role in inspiring the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol or his ongoing threats to democratic institutions, Biden’s team has expressed confidence that it can remind enough voters of the totality of Trump’s presidency to move the polls. The outcome of the hush money trial in New York could also factor into this strategy.

Perception of Trump’s term is only one measure, however, in which Biden trails. An NBC poll released in April asked voters to compare the two candidates on a pair of attributes: “mental and physical health” and “competent and effective.”

Four years ago, Biden had the advantage over Trump on competency and the two were about even on the question of having the mental and physical health to be president. Today, Trump is seen more positively than Biden on both, and by double digits.

On issues, Trump is perceived in the NBC poll as better able to handle border security, the economy, inflation, crime and violence, and improving America’s standing in the world. Biden is seen as better equipped to handle health care, abortion, treating immigrants humanely and bringing the country together. But on those last two, his advantage since 2020 has declined.

The shifts in party identification in the NBC News and Pew surveys are significant at a time when party allegiance almost always translates into support for candidates from that party. If one party starts at a disadvantage, their candidates must work harder than the other to win over independent voters.

The presidential election will turn on various factors: candidate quality and performance; campaign effectiveness in mobilizing supporters; money and organization; and voters’ perceptions of whom they trust. Given how close the race between Biden and Trump has been, any of these can affect the race at the margins. If McInturff’s assessment is correct, Republicans will be running on a level treadmill.

(c) Washington Post