GOP Hurting

No surprise the Republican Party, associated with scandal, Katrina and a difficult war during the 2006 elections, and with Bush and economic collapse in 2008, is in trouble. Gallup has run several polls documenting the GOP’s low state.

In one, Gallup found that those identified with the two parties, after independents are reclassified as leaning Democrat or Republican, have moved between 2001 and 2009 toward the Democrats as follows:


The gap between parties in 8 years has grown from 1% to 14% in favor of Democrats. That’s big.

Another poll went inside the heads of both groups and found Republicans much more unhappy with their party than Democrats:


That means Democrats, admittedly coming off two big victories, are less than 1/5th as likely as Republicans to have problems with their party.

Overall, 58% of the total sample viewed Democrats favorably, a big 19% more than the 34% who viewed Republicans favorably. And overall, 59% of those polled (including those 38% of unhappy Republicans) have an unfavorable view of the GOP, against only 34% with an unfavorable view of Democrats. That’s a whopping 25% difference.

Information from other Gallup surveys points to known Republican weaknesses among sub-groups. The respondents who are non-white (including Hispanic) and non-black make up the following shares of each voting group:


Republicans remain an overwhelmingly white party, though at least the largest share of any non-black minority grouping is independent, not Democrat, and thus more open to moving Republican.

And as we noted here, Democrats are the party of women. Gallup’s polling bears out that fact:


The possible “silver lining” Gallup notes for Republicans is that while men have moved away from the GOP since 2005, they identify as independent not Democrat, so may more readily shift in the future back to Republican. And though Gallup doesn’t say so, the women leaving the GOP also identify as independent, with the Democratic share of women at 42%, exactly where it was in mid-2004.