These poll numbers were released earlier today by Rasmussen Reports -- "an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information."
Partisan Trends
Number of Republicans Reaches Highest Level Since December 2004
Monday, January 3, 2011
The number of American adults calling themselves Republicans in December increased by one percentage point from November to 37.0%.
Also in December, the number calling themselves Democrats fell by a point to 33.7%.
Those figures reflect the largest number of Republicans in the nation since December 2004 and the lowest number of Democrats ever recorded in tracking since November 2002.
It's the second straight month that Rasmussen Reports polling has found more people identifying as Republicans than Democrats. Prior to November, that had never happened before. See the History of Party Trends from January 2004 to the present.
In each of the recent election cycles, the victorious party has gained in net partisan identification over the course of the election year. It is worth noting, however, that the gains are often short-lived.
Following Election 2004, the Republican partisan decline began in February 2005. In 2006, the Democratic edge began to decline as soon as they actually took control of Congress in January. Following President Obama's victory in November 2008, the Democrat's advantage in partisan identification peaked in December before declining.
Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based on telephone interviews with approximately 15,000 adults per month and has been doing so since November 2002. The margin of error for the full sample is less than one percentage point, with a 95% level of confidence.
The biggest partisan gap advantage ever measured for Democrats was 10.1 percentage points in May 2008. In December 2008, the final full month of the Bush administration, the Democrats held an 8.8-percentage-point advantage.
Between November 2004 and 2006, the Democratic advantage in partisan identification grew by 4.5 percentage points. That foreshadowed the Democrats' big gains in the 2006 midterm elections. The gap grew by another 1.5 percentage points between November 2006 and November 2008 leading up to Obama's election.
The number of Democrats peaked at 41.7% in May 2008, and it was nearly as high--at 41.6%--in December 2008. That number fell below the 40% mark in March 2009 and first fell below 35% in September 2010. The number of Democrats has been below 35% in three of the past four months.
For Republicans, the peak was way back in September 2004 at 37.3%. Since then, until the past two months, the number of Republicans has generally stayed between 31% and 34% of the nation's adults.
Keep in mind that figures reported in this article are for all adults, not likely voters. Republicans are a bit more likely to participate in elections than Democrats.
The president's approval rating has held fairly steady throughout 2010 as reflected in our month-by-month review.
Republicans continue to hold an advantage on the Generic Congressional Ballot.
Republicans still are trusted more than Democrats on most key issues .
Data from our monthly partisan identification survey is used to set weighting targets for other Rasmussen Reports surveys. The targets are based on results from the previous three months.