- A recent Gallup poll shows nearly half of Democrats want to see their party become more moderate. Republicans want their party to stay the same.
- The poll shows partisans have grown more ideologically polarized.
- Americans’ identification with liberal or conservative reaches record highs.
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Nearly half of Democrats say they want their party to become more moderate after losing the White House and both houses of Congress in the 2024 election. Nearly the same amount of Republicans think their party should stay the same, according to a recent Gallup poll.
The results, released on Feb. 13, show a significant shift from the last time Gallup asked these questions in 2021, following the 2020 presidential election. In 2021, Democrats were pretty evenly split on whether they wanted the party to become more liberal, stay the same or move in a moderate direction.
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Now, 45% of self-identifying Democrats report wanting the party to be more moderate, up 11 percentage points from 2021.
As for Republicans, the largest share in 2021 wanted the party to be more conservative. In 2025, 43% say the party should stay the same. The rest were evenly split on whether it should move in a moderate or conservative direction.
The post-election reckoning
Gallup’s findings confirm that Democratic voters are more dissatisfied with the party’s direction following the 2024 election results than in 2020. The Polarization Research Lab found similar results in December.
While the election did not change how Republicans and Democrats felt about voters from the opposing political party, it did change how voters felt about their party. Following November’s election, Democrats viewed their party 5% more negatively, while Republicans viewed their party 5% more positively.
“Losing an election didn’t change how partisans saw the other side, but it did change how partisans saw their own party,” said Sean Westwood, director of the Polarization Research Lab. “I think what’s really important is that we find that Americans evaluate democracy less on objective criteria and more based on how well their party did.”
How do voters feel about the president?
A separate Gallup poll shows an astounding gap between what Republicans and Democrats think about President Donald Trump. In his second term, Trump continues to be the only president with an incoming approval rating of less than 50%, according to data dating back to 1953. That said, his approval rating amongst Republicans is higher than any other president’s in recent history.
Ninety-one percent of Republicans said they approve of Trump at the start of his second term, similar to his 90% approval rating in 2017. Only 6% of Democrats approve of Trump going into his second term, a gap spanning 85 points. Former President Joe Biden holds the largest gap in political party approval ratings, spanning 87 points.
