Democrats have a growing advantage in the election, a flip from January, poll shows

Polls aren’t just leaning toward Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden — they are siding with the whole Democratic Party, according to Gallup.

Americans now overwhelmingly lean toward the Democratic Party, Gallup’s poll shows. Fifty percent of people polled say they are Democratic affiliated or independents leaning in that direction. Thirty-nine percent of American adults polled say they are affiliated with the Republican Party or lean that way, according to Gallup.

The Republican Party had a 2 percentage-point advantage in January, but it’s swung 13 points in the Democratic Party’s favor.

The nation began shifting toward the Democratic Party in March as the coronavirus pandemic began. It had a 2 percentage-point lead in March, and it has grown substantially since then. The shift continued in June, which Gallup said was likely a result of “racial injustice that followed the death of George Floyd while in police custody on May 25, as well as increased U.S. struggles to contain the coronavirus spread.”

The shift coincides with presidential election polls. Many show the former vice president has a double-digit lead on President Donald Trump.

More than 2,000 American adults were surveyed by Gallup. The poll has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.

Gallup said double-digit party advantages are uncommon, but the Democratic Party had a 10 percentage-point lead in October 2018. The following month, Democrats flipped the majority in the House of Representatives in their favor.

“If the strong current Democratic positioning holds through Election Day, Democrats could build off those 2018 successes to possibly win the presidency and Senate in 2020,” Gallup wrote.

Other recent times the Democratic party had a double-digit lead came in December 2012, after Barack Obama was elected to his second term as president, along with most of George W. Bush’s second term as president from 2006 to 2008.

Gallup’s poll follows one it did in June about Americans’ satisfaction with the country.

Satisfaction hit 45%, a 15-year high, in February and dropped 25 percentage points to 20% in June. Gallup said the drop happened in two waves: the first with the coronavirus pandemic and the second in May, coinciding with the death of Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died in Minneapolis police custody.

Only 6% of Democrats were satisfied with the direction of the U.S. in June, the lowest since before the 2008 presidential election. Of the Republicans surveyed, only 39% were satisfied with the direction of the U.S., while 80% were satisfied in February.

This story was originally published July 16, 2020 at 10:45 AM with the headline "Democrats have a growing advantage in the election, a flip from January, poll shows."