After emphatically losing the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump, more Democrat voters want to see their party shift to becoming more moderate, according to a new poll from Gallup.
The desire to see the Democratic Party adjust its policies and stance towards the middle of the political spectrum is up 11 percentage points from 2021 – an indication that much of the United State’s voting population is shifting to a more conservative ideology.
While Democrats saw an increase in party support in the 2020 presidential election and 2022 midterm elections they quickly lost momentum leading up to the 2024 presidential election where President Donald Trump picked up every swing state to secure the White House.
Those results largely aligned with previous polling from Gallup and Pew Research Center which showed that more Americans were identifying as Republicans than Democrats in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.
High inflation, unaffordable housing, rising consumer prices, the pandemic’s impact on individual freedoms and other factors all contributed to empowering the conservative movement.
But the new polling indicates that the country’s shift toward conservatism has struck a chord with 45 percent of Democrat and Democrat-leaning voters who say the party should become more moderate.
In an ideological party breakdown, Gallup found that most moderate Democrats believe the party should move toward the middle while only 30 percent of liberal Democrats shared the same belief.
The same cannot be said for Republicans.
Only 27 percent of Republicans surveyed believe the party should become more moderate – though that is three percentage points higher than in 2021.
The poll found that 43 percent of Republicans think the party should remain as it is. Approximately 28 percent say the party should become more conservative but that is 12 percentage points lower than it was in 2021 – indicating Republican voters are content with the election results and the country’s direction.
Like moderate Democrats, most moderate Republicans are the voters who believe the party should shift toward the middle of the political spectrum. A staggering 50 percent of moderate Republicans said they think the party should become more moderate.
Only 16 percent of conservative Republicans wish to see the party move moderately.
Most conservative Republicans want their party to remain as it is or become more conservative.
As Trump and his administration begin to implement conservative policies, some of which are unconventional, Republican and Democrat voters’ opinions will change.
At the beginning of former president Joe Biden’s administration, most Americans identified as Democrat but as people grew unhappy with his policies and the state of the country, Republican support bloomed.
