En demokrat efter Obama ?

NY Times sammanfattar idag en omfattande Pew-undersökning av hur amerikanerna ser på de båda partierna – och i vilken utsträckning de själva är benägna att identifiera sig som ”demokrater” eller ”republikaner”.

The party identification of American voters was one of the most hotly debated topics among analysts before the 2012 presidential election. Many Republicans thought there were roughly equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, and so doubted polls showing President Obama with the lead.

In the end, the polls were right. This week, a Pew Research report based on about 25,000 interviews in 2014 took a new measure of partisanship. Here are the most interesting findings:

Despite the president’s sagging approval ratings in 2014 and the strong Republican performance in the midterm elections, the Democrats retain a nine-point advantage among adult Americans who lean toward a party identification, 48 percent to 39 percent.

The tally is nearly unchanged from the 10-point Democratic advantage in 2012, when President Obama won re-election.

The stability of the Democratic advantage in party identification suggests that disappointment with Mr. Obama’s performance hasn’t caused traditionally Democratic voters to reassess their partisanships.

Det är mycket långt till valdagen i november nästa år, men ska man våga en mycket försynt gissning skulle den nog gå ut på att USA under de fyra åren därefter kan komma att vara lika politiskt handlingsförlamat som idag dvs med en demokrat i Vita Huset och en av republikanerna dominerad kongress.