In today’s Roll Call, The Winston Group’s David Winston writes that 2024 may “go down in history as the election the Democratic Party ID hit an all-time low.”
Exit polls ask voters which of the two major parties they identify with, or neither, as the case may be. Comparing the composition of the electorate in the 2024 presidential race with the one in 2020, Democrats dropped a significant 6 points in party ID, going from 37 percent to 31 percent and becoming, de facto, the country’s third party, behind both Republicans and independents. This year’s major turnabout by voters gave Republicans a historic plus-4 party ID presidential-level advantage that delivered a political hat trick for the party — the White House, Senate and House.
… Democrats and the media should have seen this coming. The Winston Group’s 2022 post-election analysis noted that Democrats had the lowest percentage of the electorate, 33 percent, that the party had experienced in the past 20 congressional elections. The previous low was 35 percent, which came in the Democratic defeats in the congressional elections of 2010 and 2014. Definite red-flag material.
Read the full piece here.