Americans’ opinions of the Republican Party have improved to the point where now more have a favorable than unfavorable opinion of the party. The last time more Americans viewed the GOP more positively than negatively was in 2005

For the early part of the 2000s, Americans had a net-positive image of the Republican Party. That changed in 2005, as Americans soured on the Bush administration over the ongoing Iraq war, the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and rising gas prices, among other issues. After the 2006 midterm elections, which saw Americans remove the Republicans as the majority party in Congress, the Republicans’ ratings were 35% favorable and 58% unfavorable.

The Republican Party’s image remained negative over the next two years as the economy worsened, except for a 47%-47% reading after the party’s well-received national convention in 2008, which ended days before the financial crisis intensified. Just after Americans elected Barack Obama to replace Bush later that year, the Republicans’ net-favorable score was -27 (34% favorable, 61% unfavorable) — the worst Gallup has measured in this trend dating to 1992

Not having George W. Bush around with an unpopular Iraq War will help but the Republicans in the House are on probation. If they do not perform and resort to politics as usual, the Tea Party will vote them out of office.

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.