Six months into President Donald Trumps presidency, polling from Gallup show affluent communities at the fringes of American metropolitan areas are slipping away from the Republican Party.
Data from Gallup show 45.5% of adults in exurban communities self-identified as Republican in the second quarter of 2017, down from 49.6% in the first quarter of 2017 and 51.6% in the fourth quarter of 2016. It was also the lowest quarterly number for self-identified Republicans in the exurbs since 2013, the earliest numbers available.
The data also showed an increase in self-identified Democrats in exurban counties to 40.5% from 37.3% in the first quarter of 2017 and 36.8% in the fourth quarter of 2016. The 40.5% was the highest number recorded from Democrats since 2013.
The Gallup data was aggregated from the firms second quarter daily tracking poll and was analyzed using the American Communities Project at George Washington University, which uses socio-economic and demographic data to break U.S. counties into 15 types of community.
The drop in GOP party identification could have impacts on the vote coming from these counties for midterm elections in 2018 and going forward to 2020. The 222 exurban counties hold about 32 million Americans and have voted for Republican presidential candidates by double-digits in every election since 2000.
To be sure, the first quarters of 2017 have not been good overall for Republicans in the Gallup poll. Nationally, the number of adults self-identifying as Republicans dropped by about 2.6 percentage points since the end of 2016 from 41.1% to 38.5%. But the 6-point drop in the exurbs was particularly noteworthy and may be tied to larger socio-economic issues.
The exurbs are home to a specific kind of Republican voter.
These counties, which are typically at the edges of urban areas commuter bubbles, are better educated than the nation as a whole: 34% of people 25-and-older have a bachelors degree, compared to less than 30% nationally. And their average median household income, $64,226, is more than $10,000 above the national median.
These include counties like Chester County, Penn., outside of Philadelphia, Delaware County, Ohio, outside of Columbus, and Douglas County, Colo., south of Denver.
According to Gallup data 83% of the people who live in exurban counties were satisfied with their standard of living in the second quarter of 2017 and 64% believed their standard of living is improving.
In other words, these are not the struggling communities Mr. Trump was targeting in the 2016 election. They still supported Mr. Trump and gave him almost 56% of their vote, but that was slightly less than the 58% these same counties Republican gave Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race.
The figures could represent an important political shift in these communities. A movement of even a few points on the partisan divide could impact close House and Senate races, considering the relatively large population of these counties.
Gallups national second quarter figures also revealed a small decline in Republican self-identification among those with a college degree a slip of about two points, to 40.3%.
The Gallup sample is large: more than 45,000 people overall with 5,000 in exurban counties, but the figures still only represent one quarter of data. The numbers will bear watching in the months ahead.
