More bad news for GOP

Timothy McNulty | April 29, 2009

Not only is Republican party identification slipping in Pennsylvania and nationwide, more Pa voters (see above) identify themselves as independents than Republicans , Pew reports.

In announcing his change in party affiliation from Republican to Democrat yesterday, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter mentioned the changing composition of his state as a consideration. Across a typical year the Pew Research Center conducts well over 1,000 interviews in Pennsylvania, including 384 in the first four months of 2009. The data, so far, support Sen. Specter's contention. When he last ran for his seat in 2004, 38% of Pennsylvanians said they were Democrats, while 34% identified as Republican. This year, the share identifying as Democrats is the same 38%, but only 27% call themselves Republicans. What had been a slim four-point Democratic identification advantage is now an eleven-point advantage.

The pattern of partisan change in recent years has been remarkably consistent across the nation. Since 2004, the GOP has lost at least five points in party identification in every region of the nation. Meanwhile, Democratic identification in 2009 is either at or just slightly above 2004 levels. The Northeast stands out from other parts of the country not for the magnitude of the shift, but the overall balance in favor of Democrats. Even in 2004 -- when there were nearly as many Republicans as Democrats in the rest of the country -- Democrats held a substantial 35% to 26% advantage in Northeastern states. That advantage has widened to a nearly two-to-one edge (38% to 20%) in 2009.