Voters who identify as Democrats falls 5% for the year

By Rick Moran

Rasmussen reports they are still ahead of GOP in identification but there is no doubt that the gap is narrowing.

Mary Katherine Ham writing in the Weekly Standard blog:

The number of Americans identifying as Democrats, though still hovering above Republican identification, fell two points in November alone:

The number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats fell by nearly two percentage points in November. Added to declines earlier in the year, the number of Democrats in the nation has fallen by five percentage points during 2009.

In November, 36.0% of American adults said they were Democrats. That's down from 37.8% a month ago and the lowest number of Democrats since December 2005.

The gap between Democratic and Republican identification is the smallest since 2007,

In the most recent Gallup poll, Americans are expressing their displeasure with the leader of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama, whose disapproval ratings on Terrorism, Economy, Health Care, Jobs, and Afghanistan, respectively, are: 47, 53, 53, 55, 55.

Obama still has support on energy policy and global warming, but one wonders how long that will last in the face of ClimateGate, which Republicans are now linking to the administration's ever-more-dubious seeming energy policy plans.

doing damage to the one data point that allowed Democrats to hope Republican wins would not be large in 2010.

Why hasn't more of the Democratic drop off in support shown up as increases for the GOP?

That is a question that should concern party leaders. It means that the Republicans still have something of an odor about them and that more work needs to be done to win back disaffected voters.

Beyond that, it is the independents who are increasing. We've seen it all year in other polls as well. And the indies are abandoning Obama as well with a strong majority now disapproving of the way he is handling things.

If the GOP should be worried about winning back voters, the Dems should be terrified at their dwindling numbers. A lot of those 50 or so seats they won in 2006-2008 are in nominal GOP districts. Even a few percentage points in lost registrations would swing many of those districts back to the GOP in a heartbeat.

Hat Tip: Ed Lasky