New Poll Shows More States Becoming Republican

 

A new analysis from Gallup shows that 20 states are Republican or leaning toward Republican in political party affiliation.

 

Fourteen other states are Democratic or leaning toward Democratic, according to the Gallup analysis. The remaining 16 states are considered competitive. 

 

This is the first time in eight years of analysis that Republican states have outnumbered Democratic states. 

 

The tracking survey comes from counting Republican and Democratic supporters. People who identify as independents are then asked which party affiliation they are leaning to. 

 

A “solidly favoring state” is one where there is greater than 10 percentage point advantage over the other party affiliation. A “leaning” state is one in which one party has an advantage of more than five points, and competitive states show the parties within five points of one another.

 

Maine, Pennsylvania and Michigan all changed from Democratic-leaning to competitive states, and New Hampshire, Missouri, South Carolina, West Virginia and Texas moved from competitive to Republican or Republican-leaning.

 

The top Republican states were Wyoming, Idaho and Utah. The top Democratic states were Vermont, Hawaii and Rhode Island.

 

Ohio, North Carolina, Minnesota, Florida and Wisconsin were the most equal states, where Democratic and Republican affiliation were within less than one point of each other.

 

In 2008, a whopping 35 states identified as Democratic or leaning Democratic, while only five states were identified as solidly Republican or leaning Republican.