During the month of October, 37.3% of Americans considered themselves to be Democrats, 32.7% said they were Republicans, and 30.0% were not affiliated with either major party. Those figures are virtually identical to the September results but reflect a slight improvement for Republicans compared to a year ago.

So far this year, the number of Democrats has ranged from a low of 35.9% in July to a high of 37.8% in February (see history).

For Republicans, the bleakest month was May when just 30.8% of all adults identified with the GOP. This month’s total of 32.7% is their best since July of 2006.

The gap between the parties remains steady at a 4.5 percentage point advantage for the Democrats. That’s the fourth straight month the gap favored Democrats by a margin between 4.5 and 4.9 percentage points. That range reflects a bigger advantage for the Democrats than at any time between January 2004 and July 2006. However, as the GOP stumbled to defeat in Election 2006, the partisan edge for the Democrats grew significantly.

In the final three months of 2006, the Democrats advantage exceeded six percentage points each month. For the first five months of 2007, it remained above 5.5 percentage points each month. Then, following the Senate immigration debacle in June, the GOP closed the gap to just 4.1 points. After the immigration debate faded, the GOP surge faded a bit and the party identification numbers have remained fairly stable since that time.

Three years ago this month, as the nation was preparing for Election 2004, the Democrats’ advantage was just six-tenths of a percentage point. That was the closest the Republicans have been to parity over the past four years.

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.

Democrats continue to have a significant advantage on ten key issues tracked by Rasmussen Reports. Nancy Pelosi's Party also holds a solid lead on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

Rasmussen Reports provides a daily Presidential Tracking Poll and maintains a database of key stats for all Democratic and Republican candidates. Also available are continuously updated ratings for Members of Congress, Other Political Figures, and Journalists.