Voters wait in line, socially distanced from each other, to cast early ballots on Oct. 19, 2020, in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Voters wait in line, socially distanced from each other, to cast early ballots on Oct. nineteen, 2020, in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The United States holds a presidential election every 4 years, merely it'due south not just the candidates and bug that change from one campaign cycle to the next. The electorate itself is in a wearisome but constant state of flux, too.

The profile of the U.S. electorate can change for a variety of reasons. Consider the millions of Americans who have turned 18 and can vote for president for the first time this year, the immigrants who have become naturalized citizens and can bandage ballots of their ain, or the longer-term shifts in the country's racial and ethnic makeup. These and other factors ensure that no two presidential electorates look exactly the same.

And so what does the 2020 electorate look similar politically, demographically and religiously as the race between Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden enters its concluding days? To answer that question, hither's a roundup of recent Pew Inquiry Center findings. Unless otherwise noted, all findings are based on registered voters.

Party identification

Share of registered voters who identify with the GOP has ticked up since 2017

Effectually a third of registered voters in the U.S. (34%) identify as independents, while 33% identify equally Democrats and 29% identify equally Republicans, according to a Heart analysis of Americans' partisan identification based on surveys of more than 12,000 registered voters in 2018 and 2019.

Most independents in the U.S. lean toward 1 of the two major parties. When taking independents' partisan leanings into account, 49% of all registered voters either identify as Democrats or lean to the political party, while 44% identify as Republicans or lean to the GOP.

Party identification among registered voters hasn't changed dramatically over the past 25 years, merely there have been some modest shifts. One such shift is that the Democratic Party's advantage over the Republican Party in party identification has become smaller since 2017. Of class, just because a registered voter identifies with or leans toward a detail party does not necessarily mean they will vote for a candidate of that party (or vote at all). In a study of validated voters in 2016, 5% of Democrats and Democratic leaners reported voting for Trump, and 4% of Republicans and GOP leaners reported voting for Hillary Clinton.

Race and ethnicity

Nonwhites make up four-in-ten Democratic voters but fewer than a fifth of Republican voters

Non-Hispanic White Americans brand up the largest share of registered voters in the U.S., at 69% of the total every bit of 2019. Hispanic and Blackness registered voters each business relationship for 11% of the total, while those from other racial or ethnic backgrounds account for the remainder (eight%).

White voters account for a diminished share of registered voters than in the past, declining from 85% in 1996 to 69% ahead of this twelvemonth's election. This change has unfolded in both parties, just White voters take consistently accounted for a much larger share of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters than of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters (81% vs. 59% as of 2019).

The racial and indigenous composition of the electorate looks very different nationally than in several fundamental battleground states, co-ordinate to a Heart assay of 2018 data based on eligible voters – that is, U.South. citizens ages 18 and older, regardless of whether or not they were registered to vote.

White Americans accounted for 67% of eligible voters nationally in 2018, merely they represented a much larger share in several key battlegrounds in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, including Wisconsin (86%), Ohio (82%), Pennsylvania (81%) and Michigan (79%). The contrary was true in some battlefield states in the Due west and Southward. For example, the White share of eligible voters was below the national average in Nevada (58%), Florida (61%) and Arizona (63%). You tin can see racial and ethnic breakdown of eligible voters in all 50 states – and how information technology changed between 2000 and 2018 – with this interactive feature.

Historic period and generation

The aging U.S. electorate: A majority of Republican voters - and half of Democrats - are 50 and older

The U.Southward. electorate is aging: 52% of registered voters are ages 50 and older, upwardly from 41% in 1996. This shift has occurred in both partisan coalitions. More than one-half of Republican and GOP-leaning voters (56%) are ages l and older, up from 39% in 1996. And among Autonomous and Autonomous-leaning voters, half are fifty and older, up from 41% in 1996.

Another way to consider the aging of the electorate is to look at median age. The median age amidst all registered voters increased from 44 in 1996 to 50 in 2019. Information technology rose from 43 to 52 among Republican registered voters and from 45 to 49 among Democratic registered voters.

Despite the long-term aging of registered voters, 2020 marks the starting time time that many members of Generation Z – Americans born later on 1996 – will exist able to participate in a presidential election. I-in-x eligible voters this yr are members of Generation Z, upwards from just four% in 2016, according to Pew Enquiry Heart projections. (Of course, not all eligible voters terminate up registering and actually casting a election.)

Education

Share of Democratic voters with no college experience has fallen sharply; much less change among the GOP

Around two-thirds of registered voters in the U.S. (65%) do not have a college degree, while 36% do. But the share of voters with a higher degree has risen substantially since 1996, when 24% had ane.

Voters who identify with the Democratic Party or lean toward it are much more probable than their Republican counterparts to have a higher degree (41% vs. thirty%). In 1996, the reverse was true: 27% of GOP voters had a college degree, compared with 22% of Democratic voters.

Religion

Christians account for the bulk of registered voters in the U.S. (64%). Just this figure is down from 79% equally recently as 2008. The share of voters who identify as religiously unaffiliated has nearly doubled during that bridge, from 15% to 28%.

The share of White Christians in the electorate, in item, has decreased in recent years. White evangelical Protestants business relationship for eighteen% of registered voters today, down from 21% in 2008. During the aforementioned period, the share of voters who are White non-evangelical Protestants fell from 19% to 13%, while the share of White Catholics fell from 17% to 12%.

Around eight-in-ten Republican registered voters (79%) are Christians, compared with about one-half (52%) of Democratic voters. In turn, Democratic voters are much more probable than GOP voters to identify as religiously unaffiliated (38% vs. xv%).

Self-identified Christians continue to make up a large majority of Republican voters, but are now only about half of Democrats

The cardinal question: What about voter turnout?

Turnout in U.S. presidential elections

Surveys tin can provide reliable estimates about registered voters in the U.S. and how their partisan, demographic and religious profile has inverse over time. But the critical question of voter turnout – who volition exist motivated to cast a ballot and who will not – is more difficult to answer.

For one matter, non all registered voters end up voting. In 2016, effectually 87% of registered voters bandage a ballot, according to a Pew Research Middle analysis of Census Bureau data shortly later on that yr's election.

Likewise, voter turnout in the U.South. is not a constant: It can and does change from one election to the next. The share of registered voters who cast a ballot was higher in 2008 than four years ago, for case.

Turnout also varies by demographic factors, including race and ethnicity, historic period and gender. The turnout charge per unit among Blackness Americans, for instance, exceeded the charge per unit amidst White Americans for the first time in the 2012 presidential election, just that pattern did not agree four years later.

So what does all this mean for 2020? There are some early indications that overall turnout could attain a record loftier this year, merely as turnout in the midterms 2 years agone reached its highest point in a century. But 2020 is far from an ordinary year. The combination of a global pandemic and public concerns about the integrity of the election have created widespread doubt, and that incertitude makes it even more hard than usual to appraise who will vote and who won't.