Previously, used
Survey USA 50-state polling data to show the number of identified Republicans and their support for Bush was decreasing. This post looks at Democrats and Independents: nationwide, the number of Democrats is holding steady while Independents increase at the expense of the Republicans. Locally there may be some interesting stories. Independents, however, poll
much closer to Democrats than to Republicans. Below, maps for Democrats and Independents, changes in party identification, the skew of Independents towards Democrats, and the partisan rift.
First, thank you to everybody who participated in the
last diary; this diary is mostly about the suggestion to look at Dems and Indys, and many of the points below were first noted or inspired by several commenters. It looks like I'm not the only one around here who likes maps! Especially the overall
approval map (much to my surprise!) - so I'll put one up every month for everybody. And thank you for your suggestions. Those I haven't addressed here I'll try to tackle later.
Now, the details:
The number of Republicans has decreased, but the number of Democrats has remained the same. It's the number of Independents that has increased. This is still good, but it's not the best it could be. It is, however, an opportunity that Democrats can seize - some of these ex-Republicans are going to be leaving on the moderate side. Note that these numbers are aggregates of the 50-state data and are not adjusted for population.
Independents increase at the expense of Republicans. Note limited range on y-axis.
Incidentally, the decrease in Bush's popularity has been driven by the decrease in popularity among Republicans. His approval rating is still sinking among Dems and Indys, but while a 3% decrease is large relative to a total 15% approval rating, it doesn't contribute much to the overall approval decrease.
Decrease in Republican approval is the greatest contribution to Bush's falling approval.
Back to the decrease in Republicans. The maps below show estimates of increases (green) and decreases (purple) across the country for all party identifications, based on a simple regression. I considered any change below 6% (about 2% of total respondents) to not be substantial and possibly noise (warning: this is my subjective judgment after perusing the data). It is clear that the decrease in Republicans is almost always coming at the same time as an increase in Independents.
Change in party identification: purple is decreasing, green is increasing. Full size here.
Some state-by-state changes:
Democrats up, Republicans down: Montana, South Carolina, Colorado, New Mexico
Democrats up, Independents down: South Dakota, Iowa
Democrats down, Independents up: Florida, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada
Is this related to local politics? Is the Governor of Montana bringing people to the Democratic party with his leadership? Contrast this to Minnesota, where the governor and one senator are Republicans, and the Democratic senator is retiring. It looks like people are fleeing the Republicans (or those who endorse them), but is there a high-profile Democratic leader for them to embrace? Insights, anyone?
So: many states have a decrease in Republicans. This is good. But we can do better.
But what do these Independents think? In the chart above, Independents are more than twice as far away from Republicans as Democrats in their approval of Bush. They also give a lower approval rating than the total population. This is especially clear on the map below: the Independent map shows lower ratings than the map for all respondents.
Geographically, the highest Independent ratings are in the South and Mountain West. The highest ratings from Democrats are in the Southern Plains/South; from Republicans, the Mountain West. Another interesting point is that Democrats in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee are just as unhappy with Bush as those in the Northeast and Midwest.
Approval by party. Click to enlarge. Separate graphs here for Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and all respondents.
One thing that is obvious from the maps above is that Independents are clearly unhappy with Bush - there is only one slightly red state for Independents, Mississippi. (Even that might be a result of a bad poll because of hurricane devastation.) The map below shows just how skewed towards Democrats the Independents are. This is calculated by subtracting the Independent rating from the Republican rating (R-I) and dividing by the difference between the Independents and Democrats (I-D): (R-I)/(I-D).
A value of 1 means the Independents have an approval rating exactly in between Republicans and Democrats. More than 1 means the Independents are more like Democrats. For example, if the Dem. rating is 10, the Ind. rating is 30, and the Rep. rating is 70, then the skew is (70-30)/(30-10) = 40/20 = 2. In this case, the Independents are twice as far away from Republicans as Democrats.
Independents are skewed towards Democrats everywhere, except, again, Mississippi.
Independents are much closer to Democrats than Republicans across the country.
Finally, a map representing the differences between Democrats and Republicans that I thought was interesting.
The partisan divide.