Party Identification

Independent voters now match Democratic voters in number.

Overview For the third national election in a row, independent voters may be poised to vote out the party in power. The Republican Party holds a significant edge in preferences for the upcoming congressional election among likely voters, in large part because political independents now favor Republican candidates by about as large a margin as […]

Overview The Republican Party’s prospects for the midterm elections look much better than they did four years ago at this time, while the Democrats’ look much worse. Voter preferences for the upcoming congressional elections remain closely divided (45% support the Democratic candidate or lean Democratic, while 44% favor the Republican or lean Republican). In polling […]

Overview Centrism has emerged as a dominant factor in public opinion as the Obama era begins. The political values and core attitudes that the Pew Research Center has monitored since 1987 show little overall ideological movement. Republicans and Democrats are even more divided than in the past, while the growing political middle is steadfastly mixed […]

Independent voters, who will be voting in many of the more than 20 presidential primaries and caucuses being held tomorrow, hold substantially more favorable views of John McCain (64%) and Barack Obama (62%).

That's the percentage of political independents who now say they approve of President Bush's job performance. Independent voters proved crucial to the Democrats' victory on Nov. 7.

Last week’s historic split in the House of Labor was driven, at least in part, by disagreements over whether the AFL-CIO should be focusing more on union organizing drives or electoral politics. Much is at stake, not just for the union movement but also for the political parties. Working class voters are a key swing […]

During every presidential election, questions arise over the results of political polls and how those surveys are conducted. This year’s hot topic is the partisan composition of the leading national polls. Politicians and pundits alike now scrutinize a survey sample’s partisan split as closely as the horse-race results. Surveys that are deemed to have “too […]

The Democratic Party has achieved a small gain in party affiliation and holds a 33%-29% edge over the GOP in Pew surveys conducted in 2004. This represents a modest shift from the two year period following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when the Republican Party had drawn virtually even with the Democrats. The current […]

Introduction and Summary The outcome of the New Hampshire primary has changed candidate support patterns that last year seemed all but cast in stone. Al Gore has drawn into a statistical dead-heat with George W. Bush in a general-election ballot test, largely because core Democrats are rallying behind the vice president. At the same time, […]