What Were the Partisan Breakdowns in 1974 and 1976?

Monday, October 13, 2008

Dan Riehl calls my attention to another poll that has a wild partisan split, noting that in Gallup, McCain and Obama are getting about the same amount of their base, and McCain is winning independents, 32 percent to 23 percent. Yet Obama is ahead by 8 percent in the tracking poll for this time period. This means that the sample has enough Democrats to not only overcome the margin among independents, but to provide Obama with a large margin.

Again, to refresh:

In 1988, Democrats had a three-point party ID advantage over Republicans (38-35). In 1992, Democrats still had a three-point party ID advantage over Republicans (38-35). In 1996, that advantage increased to four - a shift of one point (39-35). In 2000, Democrats were steady, up by four (39-35), and in 2004 they dropped to even (37-37).

In 2006, the Democrats returned to the lead... 38 percent to 35 percent.

Now, look. I realize Obama has the greatest turnout machine of all time, and the Republican base, at one point very jazzed about a McCain-Palin ticket, is disheartened by Obama's lead and frustrated with McCain's insistence that his opponent is decent and nothing to fear. But are we really talking about a split of nine percent, or fourteen percent, or sixteen percent, even Rasmussen's comparably mild 5.5 percent?

I am hunting for the partisan breakdowns in the electorate in 1974 and 1976. The former was seen as a referendum on the Watergate scandal (Nixon had resigned about two months earlier), with the Republicans losing 48 seats in the House. Wikipedia says the split in 1980 was 43 percent Democrat, 28 percent Republican, but I'd like to double-check that.)

10/13 05:55 PM Share