The Democratic Party’s advantage over Republicans in party preferences for Black and Hispanic adults in the U.S. has decreased by nearly 20 percentage points in the past three years, according to a new report from Gallup.
The findings, published Wednesday, show the difference in how many Black adults identify as Democrat or lean Democratic and those who identify as Republican or lean Republican decreased from 66 percent in 2020 to roughly 47 percent in 2023. That number marks the smallest gap the pollster has recorded for Democrats since it began collecting data in 1999.
Two-thirds of Black adults polled identify as or lean Democratic, whereas 19 percent identify as or lean Republican.
Gallup found the historically low support for Democrats was also true among Hispanic adults. Those who identify as or lean Democratic saw only a 12-point advantage in 2023 — down from 28 percent in 2020 — over those who lean or identify as Republican, according to the report.
White adults, however, were relatively steady in the same period — with 15 percent to 17 percent more leaning or identifying as Republican than Democratic, according to the report.
While Democrats seem to be losing ground with Black and Hispanic voters, the party has gained support among college-educated Americans or those who have a degree, per Gallup.
The new data comes after a poll in December found that 1 in 5 Black voters said they would vote for “someone else” other than former President Trump or President Biden in November, even if they are their respective party’s nominee. The GenForward survey found 63 percent of Black voters said they would vote for Biden, 17 percent would back Trump and 20 percent said they would go for someone else.
Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) has tried to deemphasize the president’s loss of support among Black Americans, pointing to Biden’s recent win in the South Carolina primary Saturday.
“I think the answer is emphatic yes,” Clyburn said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And the best illustration of that, he got 96 percent of the vote in this primary, but its largest percentage — over 97 percent — was in the town of Orangeburg, where there are two [historically Black colleges and universities] and a community college.”
The Gallup data comes from combined surveys in 2023 among 12,145 adults. As a whole, there is a margin of error of 1 percentage point.
For the smaller groups, however, the margins of error are larger, between 2 percentage points and 4 percentage points.