Rasmussen Reports conducts a national tracking poll of 15,000 voters per month, and in its latest round of polling, they found fewer and fewer people who wanted to identify themselves as Republicans.
The number of Americans calling themselves Republican has fallen to its lowest level in more than two-and-a-half years. Just 31.9% of American adults now say they're affiliated with the GOP. That's down from 37.2% in October 2004 and 34.5% at the beginning of 2006. […]
The number of Democrats has grown slightly, from 36.1% at the beginning of the year to 37.3% now. Those who claim to be unaffiliated have increased to 30.8% this month. That's the highest total recorded since Rasmussen Reports began releasing this data in January 2004.
Add it all together and the Democrats have their biggest net advantage — more than five percentage points — since January 2004. In the first month of 2006, the Democrats' advantage was just 1.6 percentage points. Last month, 32.8% of adults said they were Republicans and 36.8% identified themselves as Democrats.
Given the past several years, can you really blame people for distancing themselves from the GOP? If I were a Republican, I wouldn't want to admit it either.
– Guest Post by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report
