It’s really looking like 2008 again

The share of adults aligned with the Republicans has taken a sharp dip this summer

Gallup released new data today showing a sharp decrease in the share of the public that identifies as Republican. As of their June 2020 data, 39% of American adults align themselves with the GOP, whereas a bare majority think of themselves as Democrats. (These totals include people who call themselves independents but actually lean consistently one way toward a particular party.) Gallup’s most recent numbers are a sharp change from their May data, which showed a 47-44 percent advantage for the Democrats.

Let me say right off the bat that I’m skeptical that so large a margin will hold. The long-term trends in these party identification numbers usually move toward a dynamic equilibrium, what analysts call “reversion to the mean.” It’s likely that we’ll see the same thing. Still, it is unlikely that their data next month will show a complete reversal to the spring’s numbers. That’s because party ID is a dynamic, non-stationary process that is best predicted by some average of the recent m…