Partisan Trends: 34.8% of Americans are Democrats, 33.1% Republicans
The number of Americans who consider themselves Republicans fell for the second straight month in July. For the first time since last fall, the number of Democrats in the country has topped the number of Republicans in two consecutive months.
In July, 34.8% of adults consider themselves to be Democrats, virtually unchanged from 34.7% in June. The number of Republicans fell from 35.6% in May to 34.4% in June to 33.1% in July. That’s the lowest total for the GOP since July 2010.
For Democrats, the current results are in the middle of a narrow range they’ve occupied for the first six months of 2011.
Voters not affiliated with either party grew from 31.0% in June to 32.1% in July.
Over the past year, the gap between the two parties has been two points or less with just two exceptions. Once, the Democrats had a bigger edge and once the gap opened wider for the GOP. Prior to the middle of last year, Democrats had consistently held a wider advantage. See the History of Party Trends from January 2004 to the present.
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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