Rasmussen Reports
rasmussenreports.com
Partisan Trends:
Dems Peaking at the Right Time
November 1, 2006
In the final full month before Election 2006, the number of people identifying themselves as Republicans has fallen to its lowest level since we began reporting this measure of partisan trends in January 2004. As a result, Democrats have their biggest net advantage of the past two campaign cycles.
In October, just 31.5% of Americans considered themselves Republicans. That’s a startling decline of nearly six percentage points from 37.2% two years ago. It’s also down nearly a full point from last month.
Democrats have also lost a little ground since October 2004. Today, 37.7% identify themselves as Democrats, down a point from 38.7% on the eve of Election 2004.
However, Democrats now have a 6.2 percentage point advantage over the GOP, their largest recorded over the past 34 months. In October 2004, the Democrats advantage was a miniscule 1.5 percentage points.
These results are based upon tracking surveys of 15,000 adults per month. The margin of sampling error is less than one percentage point, with a 95% level of confidence. Please keep in mind that figures reported in this article are for all adults, not Likely Voters. Republicans typically do a bit better among Likely Voters (in fact, the two parties ended up even among those who showed up to vote in 2004).
It’s worth noting that the three best months for the Democrats have been the last three. They enjoyed a 5.3 point advantage in August and a 4.8 point advantage in September. Other than that, their advantage has not topped the 4.0 mark since January 2004.
When 2006 began, 36.1% of Americans said they were Democrats and 34.5% said they were Republicans.
Today, 30.7% are not affiliated with either major party. That’s up from 24.1% in October 2004.
As the party affiliation trends continue moving in the Democrats’ direction, the battle for control of the Senate remains too close to call (see our Senate Balance of Power summary).
The President’s Job Approval ratings continue to hover around the 40% mark and 56% rate the situation in Iraq as poor.
Monthly data from January 2004 to October 2006 can be reviewed here. |
