Gallup on Party ID

by Chris Bowers, Tue Jan 24, 2006 at 06:43:50 AM EST

Time to ride my hobbyhorse for a while. Like Harris, which found a 36-30 Democratic lead over Republicans, Gallup has now released their information on partisan identification for 2005. Oddly, without leaners, Gallup's numbes are incompatible with those from Harris:Gallup conducted more than 42,000 interviews in its multi-day polls in 2005, and asked each American who was interviewed whether he or she identified as a Republican, independent, or Democrat. If respondents identified as independents, Gallup asked whether they leaned more toward the Democratic or the Republican Party. The large number of interviews allows for an analysis of partisanship at the state level, which Gallup has done in each of the last four years.

Overall, in 2005, basic party identification was even -- 33% of Americans each identified as Republicans, independents, and Democrats.

Harris also had a large sample size and a very low MoE, The strange thing is that 33-33 and 36-30 are so far apart. Even with rounding and both MoEs, the numbers remain incompatible. I have no idea why this is the case, but it does seem to strongly indicate that there is something structural within the Gallup methodology that causes them to find more Republicans in their public surveys than other outfits. Whether this is because of the way they ask the question, the way they structure their random phone samples, or something else, I have no idea. Whatever the cause, this must be the primary reason why Gallup's polls are somewhat more pro-Bush than those of most other outfits.

Of equal interest, in this survey Gallup discusses the phenomenon of "Democratic-leaning independents" and "Republican-leaning independents." In the past, I have argued that these two groups are the primary cause for rapidly changing partisan self-identification nationwide. (My argument is that people don't actually move from identifying as Democrats to Republicans or vice versa, but that "independents" are an unstable category within partisan identification because so many of them actually have strong ties to either the Democratic or Republican party, and shift rapidly between independent identification and party identification). Gallup has an interesting chart that shows how this phenomenon can change the structure of party identification over the course of a year:

	  Bush Apprvoal    Dems     Reps
Jan-Mar       51.3	   46.1     45.9
Apr-Jun       47.5	   47.4     43.2
Jul-Sep       44.8	   48.7     41.8
Oct-Dec       40.6	   48.5     42.0

(How to read this chart: "Dems" are the average number of people who self-identifying as Democrats, plus the average number of independents who, when pushed, self-identify as Democrats. The same goes for Republicans.)

I think that this is a particularly interesting chart. Over the long term, it is probably of more use to election watchers than a straight-up Dem-Rep-Ind chart that does not push independents. After all, independents tend to not vote for independent candidates, and determining which party has the advantage in partisan self-identification when independents are included gives a better sense of the overall balance of favor within the electorate between the two parties. On that front, according to Gallup this is the largest Democratic lead since 1999, which is a very good portent for Democrats. Of course, this data also shows that the mindset of independents can change rapidly in nine months, and that Republicans actually made a very slight gain in the final three months of 2005. We clearly still have a lot of work to do before November, and there can be no letting up now.

Tags: Demographics (all tags)

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State level numbers

Chris, any idea where we can find the state-level numbers? Will they be released to the non-subscribing public?

I'm very interested on how the unenrolled voters in Massachusetts break down into lean-GOP and lean-Dem.

by sco 2006-01-24 06:57AM | 0 recs

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Am I reading this right?

As the year progressed, Democrat approval of Bush increased while Republican approval decreased? I find that hard to beleive, particularly the Democratic increase in Bush approval.

by antiHyde 2006-01-24 07:16AM | 0 recs

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Re: Am I reading this right?

I see the chart as saying this: as Bush approval decreased, more people self-identified as Democrats, and fewer self-identified as Republicans.

That seems reasonable to believe.

by sco 2006-01-24 07:18AM | 0 recs

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Reasonable

Of course. No one likes a loser.

by The lurking ecologist 2006-01-24 02:00PM | 0 recs

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Re: Am I reading this right?

OK, I read it as the percentage of Bush approval by Dems & Reps respectively. So I WAS reading it wrong.

by antiHyde 2006-01-24 07:22AM | 0 recs

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The Advantages of Independence

IMO: Keeping independents out of nominating primaries probably limits the number of independents
My understanding is that most voters rarely pay any attention to political statements. They are more likely to vote for or against an incumbents previous record than for the opposing promises of a candidate or political party.

People didn't vote for FDR or the Democratic party. in 1933 because they liked what they said. . They voted against Hoover and the Republicans because of the depression. The next election, and for many elections thereafter, they voted for the incumbent Democrats because they liked and trusted them. But that was a long time ago.

Most nominations are by primary election. Because of this, neither party can enforce party discipline at the national level. I don't think that anyone would call either party's political platform, a trusted contract with the voter!

Also, the two-party system is rewards politically dishonest rhetoric, much more than a multi-party system. A multi-party system, like they have in Europe, allows for parties to represent much narrower interest groups. People just count the elected seats for each political party, and do the deals on that basis.

In addition, because of the increased competition between political parties they have to provide some type of service for the voter. Most parties in Europe, can and sometimes do, force their elected officials to either support the party platform, or be thrown out of the party. The party members usually elect a national board that approves the parties national slate. A political science book I read in the 70's said something like; Political parties in the U.S. are probably unique in having few other functions than raising money for politicians.

by stewjack 2006-01-24 08:05AM | 0 recs

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stats

42,000 is a huge survey; technically, the MOE is 0.5%. Ad nauseam, I've argued that the true MOE is more like 4% because of systematics. That the two polls are just under two standard deviations apart is nothing to be too concerned by -- it will happen more often than 1 in 20 times.

And that's if the systematics average down; the real problem is that, as you note, they don't: Gallup and Harris fudge their numbers in different ways. The 4% MOE holds only over a long timescale.

In the end, it's incompatible assumptions that they put into the poll to "correct" it. Indeed, if you look at the history, Gallup is systematically high.

Apply a -2% correction to Gallup and you hit something more like the poll "consensus" -- whether or not that's the "true" number is something else, of course.

I'm not sure, in the end, it's meaningful to discuss the difference between 33 and 36. History is not amenable to that kind of large scale quantitative accuracy. What is unquestionable is that a large number of people dislike Bush, that percentage is far in excess of 50, and it's been growing continuously since election day.

by sdedeo 2006-01-24 08:49AM | 0 recs

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some are just wishy washy

What about the ~10% of can't make up their mind? I like to know how they approve the GOP, Dems, and Bush. I'd also like to no if these people ever vote.

by shlenny 2006-01-24 10:13AM | 0 recs

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That other 10%

A lot of them probably don't vote, or refuse to make up their minds because they believe a party could be created that represents them, but it wouldn't resemble the Dems or Repubs at all.

It's not that far-fetched. Think of how much we at MyDD dislike Republicans, yet how many of us have big problems with the way Democrats have run their party. If someone feels the same as us, only with much, much more anger at the Democrats, it's easy to see how they wouldn't want to identify with either.

That being said, I see your point, that as long as only two choices exist, they really should be able to recognize the differences.

by BringtheFight 2006-01-24 11:44AM | 0 recs

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Re: That other 10%

Some of them are Libertarians or the like, but I suspect the majority of that ~10% are people who are completely non-political, don't know, and don't care.

by Geotpf 2006-01-24 01:52PM | 0 recs

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Re: That other 10%

I think that something like 30 percent aren't registered to vote. However, what is morew to the point is that the number of voters who identify as "independents" is also quite large.

Washington Post

Moving On
More Voters Are Steering Away From Party Labels
By Rhodes Cook
Sunday, June 27, 2004; Page B01

In the 27 states (plus the District of Columbia) that have been registering voters by party since 1987, the Democratic share has plummeted 8 percentage points, declining from an aggregate total of 51 percent to 43 percent. The Republican share has stayed steady at 33 percent. But the proportion of voters who have not identified themselves with either of the major parties has jumped 8 percentage points, from 16 to 24 percent.

....Myriad polls over the past two decades have shown that voters, when asked to identify themselves politically, divide about one-third Democratic, one-third Republican and one-third independent. But in terms of registration, most have opted for one major party or the other -- perhaps because, in some states, that was the only way they could vote in a party primary. Only recently have registration figures begun to reflect the poll numbers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7329-2004Jun26.html

I think it would be reasonable to conclude that the majority of the population see little reason for loyalty to political labels. They have no organizational structure. They have more image than reality.

by stewjack 2006-01-24 02:50PM | 0 recs

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does anyone ever do longitudinal polling?

you know, where you use the same sample group over a period of time... it would serve a different purpose from traditional polling, but combine the two and you just might learn something.

by msnook 2006-01-24 07:35PM | 0 recs