Partisan Trends

Number of Unaffiliated Voters Grows in January

Monday, February 02, 2009

During January, the number of Americans who say they are not affiliated with either the Republican or the Democratic Party rose by a full percentage point to 26.6%.

The number of Americans who consider themselves to be Democrats dropped from 41.6% in December to 40.9% in January. Still, the number of Democrats topped the 40% mark for the fourth straight month and the ninth time in the last twelve months. Prior to the past twelve months, neither party was able to claim allegiance from more than 40% of Americans in any monthly polling dating back to November 2002.

The number of Republicans slipped two-tenths of a point in January to 32.8% in November to 32.6% in December. That’s the lowest number of Republicans in the country since last July.

Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based upon telephone interviews with approximately 15,000 adults per month and has been doing so since November 2002.

Currently, the Democrats enjoy an 8.1 percentage point advantage over Republicans.

While the partisan identification numbers shift little from month-to-month, the numbers document just how dramatically the political environment has changed over the past four years. In January 2005, as President Bush was inaugurated for his second term in office, the Democrats enjoyed just a one percentage point advantage over the GOP. Since that time, the number of Republicans in the country has fallen by 3.4 percentage points and the number of Democrats has grown by 3.8 percentage points (see history from January 2004 to present).

These results are based upon tracking surveys of 15,000 adults per month. The margin of sampling error for the sample is less than one percentage point, with a 95% level of confidence.

Please keep in mind that figures reported in this article are for all adults, not Likely Voters. Republicans are a bit more likely to participate in elections than Democrats.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval Index shows that Barack Obama has earned favorable reviews during his first two months as President-elect. Democrats continue to have a significant advantage on 10 key issues tracked by Rasmussen Reports and lead on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_ ... san_trends