Down with the legacy parties
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Submitted by DCblogger on Sun, 05/02/2010 - 10:22am
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update, via Valley Girl, a graph of partisan political identification:
In April, the number of adults not affiliated with either major party increased by 1.6 percentage points, while the number identifying themselves as Republicans decreased 1.3 percentage points.
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Rasmussen data since 2004
Just for fun, I plotted the data
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_c...
Couldn't help but notice that D dip in say summer 08. Gee, what was happening then? And, doesn't take more than eyeballing it to say there's a very strong correlation between the D slide and the "other" increase starting late 2008.
wow thanks
that graph makes all too clear what is happening.
Three polar politics is happening...
... it's just that a lot of us have no representation. See Stirling here. And be sure to search on "ideas," since it's a lengthy article. (This was written in 2009, so progressive is used without the shudder quotes "progressives" so richly deserve, as representatives of a legacy party faction.)
more factoids
Being in an excel frame of mind I made two more "graphs". "other" = not D or R.
Made me look more closely at the data- I didn't make another chart, but interesting that it looks like there's a strong negative correlation between R and "other" through Jan 2007. People leaving or entering one or the other category- not so much change in D.
So, switch pre 2008 was R vs. other, 2008 onward, clearly D vs. other.
VG, did the pollsters get names or type of Other parties?
Wondering if you noticed that in your examnation of the details. Thnx.
Honestly, I don't know
That would be interesting, because somehow I don't think Rs were becoming "other" for the same reasons as Ds becoming "other", so the exact other party or unaffilated would be informative. I looked quickly, but didn't see that info. I mean, for Rasmussen, there's Rs and Ds, and then the other rabble. *g*
Can you correct for the cyclic nature?
Going back two election cycles leaves a lot to the imagination. There does seem to be a dissatisfaction with the GOP right after the election in '04 which also led to an increase in "other". Presidents usually do enjoy a honeymoon for a while and voter interest peaks in November of presidential election years. Its clear that the dissatisfaction with Dems is more rapid than the onset of GOP dissatisfaction but its hard to rule out a cyclic phenomenon. I tend to believe that this is a unique period in electoral history but would like to see some data going back to the 1990s at least.
Interesting point
I just clicked on DCBlogger's link, and then followed that to archival data from Rasmussen, which was available for beg. Jan. 2004. I wasn't looking to do thorough research on this, but rather was interested to see how the brief snippet in the post matched up with what else was available at the Rasmussen site.
Dunno if there is data available going back to 1990's- but if you find it, or help me find it, I'd be glad to try to chart/ graph it.