Poll Watch: Number of Republicans Increases to Highest Level Since December 2004

The number of American adults calling themselves Republicans in December increased by one percentage point from November to 37.0%.

Also in December, the number calling themselves Democrats fell by a point to 33.7%.

Those figures reflect the largest number of Republicans in the nation since December 2004 and the lowest number of Democrats ever recorded in tracking since November 2002.

Following Election 2004, the Republican partisan decline began in February 2005. In 2006, the Democratic edge began to decline as soon as they actually took control of Congress in January. Following President Obama’s victory in November 2008, the Democrat’s advantage in partisan identification peaked in December before declining.

Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based on telephone interviews with approximately 15,000 adults per month and has been doing so since November 2002. The margin of error for the full sample is less than one percentage point, with a 95% level of confidence. 

The biggest partisan gap advantage ever measured for Democrats was 10.1 percentage points in May 2008. In December 2008, the final full month of the Bush administration, the Democrats held an 8.8-percentage-point advantage.

Between November 2004 and 2006, the Democratic advantage in partisan identification grew by 4.5 percentage points. That foreshadowed the Democrats’ big gains in the 2006 midterm elections. The gap grew by another 1.5 percentage points between November 2006 and November 2008 leading up to Obama’s election.

The number of Democrats peaked at 41.7% in May 2008, and it was nearly as high–at 41.6%–in December 2008. That number fell below the 40% mark in March 2009 and first fell below 35% in September 2010. The number of Democrats has been below 35% in three of the past four months.

For Republicans, the peak was way back in September 2004 at 37.3%. Since then, until the past two months, the number of Republicans has generally stayed between 31% and 34% of the nation’s adults.

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.

Why?

President George W. Bush is gone, along with the unpopular Iraq War and President Obama has mishandled the economy/unemployment.

Plain and simple.