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All of the hysterical gloom and doom surrounding the coverage of the Democratic Party after Trump won the 2024 election focused on how Democrats were “out of touch” with the American people and how the country had “moved to the right.”
Democratic and media elites went into a full-blown panic and claimed that the party was in crisis and needed to change all of its messaging because it wasn’t connecting with voters anymore.
It turns out that none of it was true.
According to new data from Gallup:
In the second quarter of 2025, an average of 46% of U.S. adults identified as Democrats or said they are independents who lean toward the Democratic Party, while 43% identified as Republicans or said they lean Republican.
That three-percentage-point Democratic advantage compares with a tie between the two parties in the first quarter of 2025, after a four-point Republican lead in the fourth quarter of 2024. Until now, the Republican Party had led or tied in most quarters since 2023.
…
The net three-point increase in Democratic affiliation between Q4 2024 and Q2 2025, from 43% to 46%, is entirely due to more Americans saying they are independents who lean toward the Democratic Party (up four points), not because more are identifying as Democrats outright (down one point).
Meanwhile, Republicans’ four-point decline over the same period is due to equal two-point declines in the percentages of people identifying as and leaning Republican.
So what’s happening here?
