3 polls & surveys: more Americans ID now as Republicans than Democrats

Maybe so but in 2019 the Pew organization did a poll on who was definitely going to vote Democrat and who was definitely going to vote Republican – no matter the candidates or issues. 40% of probable voters said they would vote Democrat no matter what, with only 29% saying no matter what they would vote Republican.

NBC, Gallup and Pew polling all show the GOP advantage to varying degrees. An NBC pollster first noticed the shift in May and called it an “underrecognized game changer for 2024.” NBC polls currently have Republicans leading by 2 points, with 42% of those polled identifying as Republicans and 40% identifying as Democrats. In 2020, Democrats led by six points.

This trend is also noticeable in swing states. For example, Pennsylvania has been losing registered Democrats for the past four years. Since 2020, Democrats have lost 300,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania, while Republicans gained 50,000 registrations. In 2020, Biden won the state by about 80,000 votes.

As some Republicans start to feel these numbers mean momentum is rolling in their favor, Dr. Todd Belt, a professor and director of political management at George Washington University, urges skepticism.

“I think it’s really easy to overstate these numbers because one of the things we know is that the campaigns are going after a lot of independents and a lot are trying to get out their own voters … and so this is the field on which the game is played; this isn’t the game itself,” said Belt.