Voters wait in line, socially distanced from each other, to cast early ballots on Oct. 19, 2020, in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Voters await in line, socially distanced from each other, to bandage early on ballots on Oct. 19, 2020, in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The Us holds a presidential election every four years, but it's not just the candidates and issues that change from ane campaign cycle to the adjacent. The electorate itself is in a dull but constant state of flux, also.

The profile of the U.South. electorate can modify for a multifariousness of reasons. Consider the millions of Americans who take turned 18 and tin vote for president for the first time this year, the immigrants who have go naturalized citizens and can cast ballots of their own, or the longer-term shifts in the country'south racial and ethnic makeup. These and other factors ensure that no two presidential electorates look exactly the same.

And then what does the 2020 electorate await like politically, demographically and religiously as the race betwixt Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden enters its last days? To respond that question, here's a roundup of contempo Pew Inquiry Center findings. Unless otherwise noted, all findings are based on registered voters.

Party identification

Share of registered voters who identify with the GOP has ticked up since 2017

Around a tertiary of registered voters in the U.S. (34%) place as independents, while 33% identify every bit Democrats and 29% identify every bit Republicans, according to a Center analysis of Americans' partisan identification based on surveys of more than than 12,000 registered voters in 2018 and 2019.

Most independents in the U.S. lean toward one of the two major parties. When taking independents' partisan leanings into business relationship, 49% of all registered voters either identify equally Democrats or lean to the party, while 44% place as Republicans or lean to the GOP.

Political party identification amid registered voters hasn't changed dramatically over the past 25 years, just there have been some modest shifts. One such shift is that the Democratic Political party's advantage over the Republican Political party in party identification has get smaller since 2017. Of grade, just because a registered voter identifies with or leans toward a particular political party does not necessarily mean they volition vote for a candidate of that party (or vote at all). In a report of validated voters in 2016, 5% of Democrats and Democratic leaners reported voting for Trump, and 4% of Republicans and GOP leaners reported voting for Hillary Clinton.

Race and ethnicity

Nonwhites make up four-in-ten Democratic voters but fewer than a fifth of Republican voters

Non-Hispanic White Americans make up the largest share of registered voters in the U.S., at 69% of the total as of 2019. Hispanic and Black registered voters each business relationship for 11% of the total, while those from other racial or ethnic backgrounds account for the remainder (viii%).

White voters account for a diminished share of registered voters than in the by, declining from 85% in 1996 to 69% alee of this year's election. This alter has unfolded in both parties, merely White voters have consistently accounted for a much larger share of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters than of Democratic and Autonomous-leaning voters (81% vs. 59% equally of 2019).

The racial and indigenous composition of the electorate looks very unlike nationally than in several key battleground states, according to a Middle assay of 2018 data based on eligible voters – that is, U.Due south. citizens ages 18 and older, regardless of whether or not they were registered to vote.

White Americans accounted for 67% of eligible voters nationally in 2018, simply they represented a much larger share in several fundamental battlegrounds in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, including Wisconsin (86%), Ohio (82%), Pennsylvania (81%) and Michigan (79%). The opposite was true in some battleground states in the Westward and S. For example, the White share of eligible voters was below the national boilerplate in Nevada (58%), Florida (61%) and Arizona (63%). You lot can meet racial and ethnic breakup of eligible voters in all 50 states – and how it changed between 2000 and 2018 – with this interactive feature.

Age and generation

The aging U.S. electorate: A majority of Republican voters - and half of Democrats - are 50 and older

The U.S. electorate is aging: 52% of registered voters are ages 50 and older, up from 41% in 1996. This shift has occurred in both partisan coalitions. More than than half of Republican and GOP-leaning voters (56%) are ages fifty and older, upwardly from 39% in 1996. And among Autonomous and Autonomous-leaning voters, one-half are 50 and older, upward from 41% in 1996.

Another way to consider the crumbling of the electorate is to expect at median age. The median age among all registered voters increased from 44 in 1996 to fifty in 2019. It rose from 43 to 52 among Republican registered voters and from 45 to 49 amidst Democratic registered voters.

Despite the long-term aging of registered voters, 2020 marks the beginning time that many members of Generation Z – Americans born after 1996 – will exist able to participate in a presidential election. One-in-ten eligible voters this year are members of Generation Z, up from just 4% in 2016, according to Pew Research Eye projections. (Of course, not all eligible voters end up registering and actually casting a election.)

Education

Share of Democratic voters with no college experience has fallen sharply; much less change among the GOP

Around two-thirds of registered voters in the U.S. (65%) practise not have a higher degree, while 36% do. Only the share of voters with a higher caste has risen substantially since 1996, when 24% had one.

Voters who place with the Democratic Party or lean toward it are much more probable than their Republican counterparts to have a college caste (41% vs. thirty%). In 1996, the reverse was true: 27% of GOP voters had a higher degree, compared with 22% of Autonomous voters.

Organized religion

Christians account for the bulk of registered voters in the U.S. (64%). But this effigy is downwards from 79% as recently as 2008. The share of voters who identify every bit religiously unaffiliated has near doubled during that span, from xv% to 28%.

The share of White Christians in the electorate, in particular, has decreased in contempo years. White evangelical Protestants business relationship for xviii% of registered voters today, down from 21% in 2008. During the same menstruum, the share of voters who are White non-evangelical Protestants fell from xix% to 13%, while the share of White Catholics fell from 17% to 12%.

Around 8-in-10 Republican registered voters (79%) are Christians, compared with about half (52%) of Autonomous voters. In plow, Autonomous voters are much more likely than GOP voters to identify every bit religiously unaffiliated (38% vs. xv%).

Self-identified Christians continue to make up a large majority of Republican voters, but are now only about half of Democrats

The key question: What about voter turnout?

Turnout in U.S. presidential elections

Surveys can provide reliable estimates about registered voters in the U.Due south. and how their partisan, demographic and religious profile has changed over time. But the critical question of voter turnout – who will be motivated to cast a ballot and who volition not – is more difficult to answer.

For ane thing, not all registered voters end upward voting. In 2016, effectually 87% of registered voters cast a ballot, according to a Pew Enquiry Center assay of Census Bureau information soon after that yr'south ballot.

Also, voter turnout in the U.S. is non a constant: Information technology tin can and does alter from one election to the next. The share of registered voters who cast a ballot was higher in 2008 than four years ago, for instance.

Turnout also varies by demographic factors, including race and ethnicity, age and gender. The turnout rate among Black Americans, for instance, exceeded the rate among White Americans for the first time in the 2012 presidential election, merely that pattern did not hold iv years later.

Then what does all this mean for 2020? At that place are some early indications that overall turnout could reach a tape high this year, simply as turnout in the midterms two years ago reached its highest point in a century. But 2020 is far from an ordinary yr. The combination of a global pandemic and public concerns about the integrity of the election take created widespread uncertainty, and that uncertainty makes it even more difficult than usual to assess who will vote and who won't.