The Democrat Party’s downward spiral
Democrats are staring down the barrel of an existential crisis. Voter registration is collapsing, enthusiasm is evaporating, and no amount of spin can cover up the fact that voters are running away because they are too far out of touch with the American people.
“Democrats know they’re doomed, and no amount of spin will change the fact that their voters are tuning out, their numbers are shrinking, and their party is unraveling at the seams.” — NRCC Spokesman Mike Marinella
The Democratic Party Faces a Voter Registration Crisis
The New York Times
Shane Goldmacher with Jonah Smith
August 20, 2025
The party is bleeding support beyond the ballot box, a new analysis shows.
The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters long before they even go to the polls.
Of the 30 states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections — and often by a lot.
That four-year swing toward the Republicans adds up to 4.5 million voters, a deep political hole that could take years for Democrats to climb out from.
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And fewer and fewer Americans are choosing to be Democrats.
In fact, for the first time since 2018, more new voters nationwide chose to be Republicans than Democrats last year.
All told, Democrats lost about 2.1 million registered voters between the 2020 and 2024 elections in the 30 states, along with Washington, D.C., that allow people to register with a political party. (In the remaining 20 states, voters do not register with a political party.) Republicans gained 2.4 million.
There are still more Democrats registered nationwide than Republicans, partly because of big blue states like California allow people to register by party, while red states like Texas do not. But the trajectory is troublesome for Democrats, and there are growing tensions over what to do about it.
Democrats went from nearly an 11-percentage-point edge over Republicans on Election Day 2020 in those places with partisan registration, to just over a 6-percentage-point edge in 2024.
That swing helps to explain President Trump’s success last year, when he won the popular vote for the first time, swept the swing states and roared back to the White House.
“I don’t want to say, ‘The death cycle of the Democratic Party,’ but there seems to be no end to this,” said Michael Pruser, who tracks voter registration closely as the director of data science for Decision Desk HQ, an election-analysis site. “There is no silver lining or cavalry coming across the hill. This is month after month, year after year.”
The shifts also previewed Democratic weaknesses in 2024. The party saw some of its steepest declines in registration among men and younger voters, the Times analysis found — two constituencies that swung sharply toward Mr. Trump.
All four presidential battleground states covered by the Times analysis — Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — showed significant Democratic erosion.
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Consider this: In 2018, Democrats accounted for 34 percent of new voter registrations nationwide, while Republicans were only 20 percent. Yet by 2024, Republicans had overtaken Democrats among new registrants.
In six years, the G.O.P.’s share rose by 9 percentage points; the Democratic share dropped nearly 8 points.
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Signs of struggle among men, younger voters and Latinos
The Democratic Party’s diminished appeal to men and younger voters was evident in partisan registration data long before it became apparent to everyone in the 2024 election.
Not so long ago, in 2018, Democrats had accounted for 66 percent of new voters under 45 who registered with one of the two major parties. Yet by 2024, the Democratic share had plunged to 48 percent, the Times analysis of L2’s data found.
In other words, Republicans went from roughly one-third of newly registered voters under 45 to a majority in the last six years.
The story is even bleaker for Democrats in some key states. In Nevada, which releases particularly detailed data, Republicans added nearly twice as many voters under 35 to the rolls as Democrats did last year, state records show.
The shifts among male voters tell a similar story.
Nearly 49 percent of men newly registering with a major party chose the Democrats in 2020. In 2024, that figure was down to roughly 39 percent.
At the same time, the Democratic edge among women registering to vote has shrunk. The combination inverted a gender gap that in recent years had heavily benefited Democrats.
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