Has anyone noticed the dramatic shift in political party affiliation since October 2008?

In October 2008, Gallup reported that 33-percent of registered voters were Republicans, 32-percent were Democrats, and 34-percent were Independent voters.

Fast forward to April 2019, and discover that only 27-percent of registered voters are now Republicans, 44-percent are Democrats, and 25-percent are Independent.

That shift is HUGE!

Since Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote in 2016 and lost the popular vote by almost three million (that Trump alleged – with no evidence – were cast by illegal aliens), the Republican Party lost 6-percent of its registered voters, and the Democratic Party grew by EIGHT percent!

What does that mean if most of the registered voters turn out to vote in 2020?

To answer that question, we have to correctly estimate how many people will vote in 2020, and the best place to start is with the election of 2018. According to Statista dot com, there were 153.07-million voters that turned out that year, a 50-year high.  In fact, the highest turnout for a midterm since 1966. More than forty-four million Democrats turned out to vote compared to 32.5 million Republicans, almost 12-million more Democrats voted.

The next step is to determine the difference between turn out during midterm elections vs general elections.

According to FairVote, “Voter turnout in the United States fluctuates in national elections. In recent elections, about 60% of the voting eligible population votes during presidential election years, and about 40% votes during midterm elections. Turnout is lower for odd year, primary and local elections. 2018 turnout was the highest midterm turnout on record at 49.6% with more votes still to count.”

Since we can expect a larger voter turnout in 2020 that means that at least another 15-million will vote, or 168.4 million total and the turnout might be higher.

June 1^st – the 2020 Election Based on Statewide Election Polls | Biden V Trump

Let’s crunch the numbers we know according to party affiliation and take into account what the Washington Examiner said, “as the nation becomes more partisan, declaring party membership is an affirmative political stand.”

Today, 27-percent of registered voters are Republican. That equals 45.5 million and almost 10 percent of Republicans do not approve of Trump’s performance. Instead of voting, that ten-percent might stay home.  That means Trump can only count on 41 million votes from his hardcore supporters.

Currently, 44-percent of registered voters are Democrats. That adds up to 64.1-million votes.

Before we can figure out how many votes Trump will NOT get from independents, it helps to know that Politico revealed recently that Trump’s approval rate in this group dropped from 54-percent when he was elected … down, down, down to 32-percent today.  What is 32-percent of 25-percent? The answer is eight million votes, but there are 42-million indie voters.  That means there are 34-million independent voters that do not approve of Donald Trump’s performance as president or as a human being.

Conclusion: If we held the election today, Trump would probably end up with about 50-million votes to more than 118.4 million votes against him. Trump could lose the 2020-election by more than 68-million popular votes. How will Trump lie his way out of that loss and who will he blame it on?

The only way Trump can possibly win in 2020 is if his Russian style misinformation campaign convinces the Never Trump crowd to stay home and not vote

That is a big challenge for Trump, the GOP, and Russia — to manipulate sixty-eight million voters that do not approve of Trump to stay home and not vote.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam combat veteran with a BA in journalism and an MFA in writing, who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

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