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Voters Who Identify As Independents Skyrocket—As Democrats And Republicans Dwindle
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2024/01/12/voters-who-identify-as-independents-skyrocket---as-democrats-and-republicans-dwindle/?sh=37c2c0003331

The percentage of U.S. adults who said they identify as Democrats fell to 27%, according to the survey of more than 12,000 U.S. adults in 2023, representing a drop from 30% in 2020, 31% in 2016 and a record 36% in 2008 and 1998.

Participants in the survey were asked if they consider themselves Democrats, Republicans or independents.

That low ties the percentage of Americans who identify as Republicans, at 27%, marking the first time since 2005 that the same number of U.S. adults identify with the two political parties.

Republican identification fell slightly from 2022, when 28% of Americans considered themselves members of the GOP, though Republican identification has remained steady for nearly 15 years, hovering between 25% and 29% since the 2008 election.

Independents, meanwhile, have continued to rise, tying a high of 43% last year, according to the Gallup telephone survey, over the 41% of adults that identified as independent in 2022, 42% in 2021 and 39% in 2020—independent identification also reached 43% in 2014.

KEY BACKGROUND
Democratic identification has slipped by one percentage point each of the last three years—from 30% in 2020—following a similar trajectory to President Joe Biden’s slumping presidential approval rating following his inauguration in January 2021. While Biden’s approval rating hit a high in March 2021 at just above 55%, it slid throughout 2021 as Biden faced pushback for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Though it recovered in August 2022 around the passing of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, his approval rating continued to slide over the course of his presidency, to 38.9% this month, according to FiveThirtyEight’s weighted polling average. A New York Times/Siena College poll in November found Biden trailing former President Donald Trump in five key battleground states in a hypothetical presidential rematch, though Biden argued, without evidence, that most recent polls show him tied with Trump or beating him.