Democrats still have an overall advantage over the GOP in terms of registered voters, but Republicans have narrowed the gap significantly since 2020, according to a new study.
Across the 30 states where voters register by party, 37.6% of them identify as Democrats, down from 40% just after the last presidential election. Republicans, meanwhile, have grown their share from 29.8% to 30.3%, according to JMC Analytics, a Louisiana-based political polling firm.
Looking specifically at states deemed critical to the outcome of this year’s election, Democrats have also lost ground while the GOP is holding steady. JMC said Democrats’ share of voters went from 38.8% in early 2021 to 35.5% as of the start of this month. Republicans haven’t changed at 34.5%.
Independents and third-party voters showed the biggest increases in both cases.
“These voter registration trends are important because voter registration (particularly for new registrants) is a statement of a voter’s current political leanings, and an erosion of Democratic voter registration across the country is not something national Democrats want to see, given how narrow [President] Biden’s wins were in several states in 2020,” JMC said Friday.
The firm also looked at current national polling and said that bodes well for former President Donald Trump.
Mr. Biden trails Mr. Trump by 3 points in JMC’s average of polling over the last week. The number has been fairly steady in recent weeks despite major events including Mr. Trump’s felony conviction in New York, the failed assassination attempt and ongoing turmoil in the Democratic Party after Mr. Biden’s debate performance.
Mr. Biden topped Mr. Trump by 4.5 percentage points of the popular vote in 2020.
JMC said each percentage point change in the national vote can translate to more electoral college votes, so if Mr. Trump’s polling advantage were to play out in the actual vote, JMC figures the Republican would be in line for 326 electoral votes. That would be more than the 306 Mr. Biden won in 2020 or the 304 Mr. Trump won in 2016.
538, a political analysis website that’s part of ABC, says its calculations show Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden have about equal chances of winning the Electoral College vote.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.