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Party Affiliation Fact Sheet (NPORS)

Pew Research Center’s annual National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS) has measured partisan affiliation among U.S. adults since 2020. Explore recent patterns of partisan affiliation in the American public and among several key demographic groups below.

About partisan affiliation measures in Pew Research Center data

This fact sheet shows trends in partisan identification among U.S. adults using data from Pew Research Center’s National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS). The most recent NPORS was conducted from Feb. 5 to June 18, 2025, among 5,022 U.S. adults.

We field NPORS to produce benchmark estimates for several topics, including Americans’ political and religious affiliations. The accompanying NPORS fact sheet provides additional detail about its methodology, including the questionnaires and links to the datasets.

We also periodically publish reports that analyze partisan affiliation trends in more depth (including longer-term trends and additional subgroup analysis), based on data from Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel and historical trends from Center telephone surveys. The most recent of these reports – focused on partisanship among registered voters – was published in spring 2024.

Political party affiliation, 2020-25

Today, Americans are about evenly split between the two parties: 46% identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, and 45% identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. This balance of partisanship is similar to 2024, but the current near-even division marks a shift from the affiliation advantage the Democratic Party enjoyed a few years ago.

Why leaners are included with partisans

While most U.S. adults consider themselves to be a partisan – either a Republican (31%) or a Democrat (28%) – 41% of Americans say they are independents or “something else.” Most of those in these groups say they lean toward one of the two parties, with 15% of all adults leaning Republican and 18% leaning Democratic. These leaners’ political views and behaviors tend to align much more closely with those of the partisans they lean toward than with those of independents who lean toward the other party.

Throughout this fact sheet, references to Republicans and Democrats include those who lean toward that party.

Partisanship by gender

The long-standing gender gap in partisan identification has been fairly consistent in recent years. Today, men are 12 percentage points more likely than women to affiliate with the Republican Party. Conversely, women are 12 points more likely than men to affiliate with the Democratic Party.

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MenWomen

Partisanship by race and ethnicity

Democratic affiliation is higher than Republican affiliation among Black, Asian and Hispanic adults. But across these groups, there have been some movements away from the Democratic Party over the last few years. White Americans continue to be more likely to affiliate with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party.

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AsianBlackHispanicWhite

Partisanship by education

Education is strongly associated with partisanship, though this has not always been the case. Adults with a four-year college degree or more formal education tend to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, while adults without a college degree are more likely to align with the Republican Party.

Two-way education:

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No college degreeCollege grad+

Four-way education:

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High school or lessSome collegeCollege gradPostgraduate degree

Partisanship by age group and generational cohort

While neither party has an overwhelming advantage among any age group, U.S. adults under 50 currently tilt Democratic, while those ages 50 and older tilt Republican. The youngest group of adults – those ages 18 to 29 today – are fairly evenly split between the two parties. But their predecessors – those who were ages 18 to 29 a few years ago – were more Democratic, on balance.

By definition, the people in an age group are slowly replaced over time as people age into, and out of, age groups. Change within an age group may be the result of changing attitudes, changing composition of that group, or both.

Age groups:

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Ages 18-2930-4950-6465+

Looking instead at “generational cohorts” allows us to track partisanship among the same set of people as they grow older.

The balance of partisanship among some cohorts (for instance, those born in the 1970s, currently ages 46 to 55) has remained relatively stable in recent years. But partisanship has shifted more within other groups. For example, the Democratic Party long held a sizable edge among people born in the 1990s (currently ages 26 to 35), but that edge is largely gone today.

Defining generational cohorts

This analysis uses generational cohort groups that are based on the decade in which respondents were born. Decades are defined as the years sharing the same tens-place digit. For example, the 1940s cohort was born between Jan. 1, 1940, and Dec. 31, 1949.

Data is shown for cohorts whose members in 2025 are all between the ages of 18 and 85. Trends are not shown for the 2000s cohort because that group of Americans is still entering adulthood. Data is not shown for those born in the 1930s or earlier as there are too few people in these oldest cohorts to report on their views.

Generational cohorts:

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1940s1950s1960s1970s1980s1990s
Partisanship by age and gender in 2025

Men in all age groups are now more likely to align with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. And, consistent with the overall gender gap, women in all age groups are less Republican than men of the same age. While there are no significant age differences in partisanship among men, women under 50 are modestly more likely than women ages 50 and older to affiliate with the Democratic Party.

The gender gap is largely similar across age groups, with the difference among adults ages 18 to 29 roughly in line with older age groups. (Sample sizes for these subgroups are relatively small, and this is particularly the case for men and women under 30. As a result, there is greater uncertainty for this group than others.)

Additional resources

For detailed analysis of partisan identification among U.S. registered voters (including longer-term trends and additional subgroup analysis), read “Changing Partisan Coalitions in a Politically Divided Nation,” from April 9, 2024. Unlike this fact sheet, the 2024 report draws upon Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel data from 2019 to 2023 and Center telephone survey data from 1994 to 2018, and it is based on registered voters instead of the general public.

Read all our reports and blog posts related to U.S. politics and policy.

For more information on the data collected from 2020 to present, refer to the Center’s National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS) fact sheet.

About this fact sheet

This analysis examines U.S. adults’ partisan identification across major demographic groups and across time using data from the latest National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS), which surveyed 5,022 U.S. adults from Feb. 5 to June 18, 2025.

NPORS uses address-based sampling and a multimode protocol that includes web, mail and phone interviews. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race and ethnicity, education, and other categories. The accompanying NPORS fact sheet provides additional detail about its methodology, including the questionnaires.

For more information on sample sizes of groups included in the analysis, click here.

This fact sheet was compiled by Senior Researcher Baxter Oliphant and Research Analyst Andy Cerda. Director of Political Research Jocelyn Kiley, Associate Director Steve Shepard, Research Analysts Shanay Gracia and Ted Van Green, Editorial Specialist Anna Jackson, Senior Information Graphics Designer Alissa Scheller and Digital Producer Reem Nadeem also provided assistance.