https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/01/17/under-biden-dems-party-preference-advantage-disappeared-in-2021-n2601938
When it comes to party preference among Americans, a new report published by Gallup on Monday showed that 2021 saw Democrats lose their advantage against the GOP in just one year. The Dems began 2021 with a new president, control of Congress, and a nine-point lead — 49 to 40 percent — over Republicans. By the end of 2021, that all had evaporated and Republicans seized the lead 47 to 42 percent, a five-point disadvantage for Democrats.
Calling the change over the course of 2021 a “dramatic shift” in party preference, Gallup’s findings are an aggregation of some 12,000 phone surveys it conducted over the course of the year, in which respondents are asked whether they identify as Democrat, Republican, or independent. Those who say independent are then asked which party they lean toward, and they are then factored into that party’s total. So what Gallup’s switch in party preferences shows is something numerous other polls have reported: Independents are leaning more toward the GOP than Democrats, and that’s more bad news for Democrats in a midterm year.
The flip in party preference wasn’t just a slim reversal, either. According to Gallup’s report on the numbers, “[b]oth the nine-point Democratic advantage in the first quarter and the five-point Republican edge in the fourth quarter are among the largest Gallup has measured for each party in any quarter since it began regularly measuring party identification and leaning in 1991.”