Gallup: Party preference swings dramatically in favor of Democrats
16 July 2020
Americans' political party preferences have swung sharply from a 2-point Republican advantage in January to an 11-point Democratic advantage in July, according to Gallup's monthly averages of telephone polls in 2020.
The big picture: The dramatic shift is more a product of fewer people identifying as Republican or Republican-leaning (down 8% since January) than gains among those who identify as Democratic or Democratic-leaning (up 5%).
By the numbers: 50% of U.S. adults identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared to 39% for the GOP.
- 32% of Americans polled identified as Democrats, and another 18% said they are independents who lean toward the Democratic Party.
- Meanwhile, 26% identified as Republicans, with another 13% saying they lean toward the GOP.
Zoom in: The month of June alone saw a 3% increase in people identifying as Democratic and Democratic-leaning, while the number of people identifying as Republican or Republican-leaning dropped by 5%.
- That shift came amid mass protests following the death of George Floyd, which catapulted racial injustice to the forefront of the national conversation, and as the U.S. continued to struggle to contain the coronavirus.
- Trump has also seen a significant decline in job approval ratings in recent months. 38% of Americans approved of the job he is doing in the latest Gallup poll.
The bottom line: Democrats last held an advantage of 10 points or more in January 2019 (51% to 39%), right after taking control of the House in a sweeping victory in the 2018 midterms.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.