For Second Straight Month, Number of Democrats in U.S. Falls to Record Low

For the second month in a row, the number of Americans who identify themselves as Democrats has fallen to a record low.

In September, 34.6% of American Adults identified themselves as Democrats. That’s down nearly half a percentage point from a month ago, a full percentage point from two months ago, and is the smallest percentage of Democrats ever recorded in nearly eight years of monthly tracking.

At the same time, the number of Republicans slipped from 33.8% in August to 33.1% last month.

The number of Adults not affiliated with either major party is now at 32.3%.

As has been the case in every month over the past eight years of tracking, there are more Democrats than Republicans in the nation. The gap is currently 1.5 percentage points. That’s up from a 1.2-percentage-point gap a month ago. The past two months are the closest the Republicans have been to parity in more than five years - since July 2005.

Things were much better for Democrats heading into the two most recent election cycles. In September 2006, they enjoyed a 4.8-percentage-point advantage. In September 2008, the gap was 5.6 percentage points. See the History of Party Trends from January 2004 to the present.

However, things aren’t quite as rosy for the Republicans as they were in September 2004. Heading into the presidential election that year, the Democrats had a 0.6-percentage-point advantage. That was the best single month ever recorded for the GOP.

Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based on telephone interviews with approximately 15,000 adults per month and has been doing so since November 2002. The margin of error for the full sample is less than one percentage point, with a 95% level of confidence.

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