DR urges everyone to check out the just-released Pew Research Center study on “The 2004 Political Landscape”. While the data have to be reviewed carefully–as DR shows below–the message that shines through should be profoundly disturbing to the Bush re-election team and the GOP in general.

This is because their data show clearly that the political views of Democrats and independents are converging on one another and pulling away from the Republicans. In other words, it’s not just that Democrats and Republicans are becoming polarized against one another–the conventional wisdom–but that Democrats and independents (two-thirds of the electorate) are becoming polarized against Republicans. For Republicans who are inclined to see anomalous recall elections and victories in Mississippi as harbingers of realignment, this news couldn’t be more discouraging. And, for donkeys everywhere, it’s very good news indeed.

The Pew study shows Democrats and independents converging in their declining support for an assertive national security policy, in their increasingly negative views of their personal financial situation, in their growing worries that a prescription drug benefit for Medicare won’t go far enough and in their increasingly skeptical attitude toward business. In each case, Democrats and independents now hold views much closer to one another than to Republicans, who are off on their own trajectory.

Of course, translating this similarity in views into Democratic voting by independents remains a challenge, but one where Democrats start with the advantage of a compatibility of views. In contrast, the Republicans have managed to isolate themselves.

Another finding of the study, which could be viewed as counterbalancing the previous finding, is that the GOP has made significant gains in party ID since 9-11, both nationally and in many states, and that now the parties are at rough parity when measured in this way (the Republicans trail the Democrats by only one point). DR is skeptical, however, that all, or even most, of these apparent gains are real.

The reason is that Pew’s figures are based on pooling data over fairly lengthy period to look at, say, “the post 9-11 period”. That’s not a problem if the attitudes in question are stable over the period and it makes theoretical sense that they would be. It is a problem if they’re not and it doesn’t.

That’s what could be happening here. DR has, in fact, noticed larger leads for the Democrats on party ID in recent public polls. A close look at the disaggregated Pew trend data confirms this. Three of the last four Pew polls, including the last two in September and October, give the Democrats a 4 point lead in party ID. That’s very close to the average Democratic lead of 5 points in Pew data covering the entire 1997-2000 time period. Moreover, when you factor in independents who say they lean toward one party or another, the Democratic lead widens to 7 points, because more independents now say they lead toward the Democrats than say they lean toward the Republicans.

If “macropartisanship”–as political scientists call the distribution of party ID among the general public–is returning to what is was before 9-11, that should come as no great surprise. First, other data from Gallup and CBS News showed a pro-Republican surge in party ID after 9-11 that ended much earlier, in fall of 2002. Second, there is a well-known relationship between presidential approval and level of partisan identification with the president’s party–that is, the higher the president’s approval rating, the more people tend to say they identify with that president’s party. Therefore, since Bush enjoyed a huge surge in his approval rating after 9-11 that lasted for an unusually long time, we would expect to see an increase in Republican party ID over that period of high approval ratings–as we did. We would also expect to see that increase melt away over time as Bush’s political advantage from 9-11 decreases and his approval rating falls to undistinguished levels–as we are today.

So: we certainly remain a closely-divided country, as the Pew study argues. But we are also a country where the political views of Democrats and independents are converging and where Democrats retain a small, but significant, advantage in party ID. And that’s good news for Democrats.