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, just it's not merely the candidates and issues that modify from 1 campaign wheel to the next. The electorate itself is in a wearisome but constant state of flux, too.

The profile of the U.S. electorate can alter 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 tin can cast ballots of their own, or the longer-term shifts in the country's racial and ethnic makeup. These and other factors ensure that no 2 presidential electorates look exactly the same.

So what does the 2020 electorate look like politically, demographically and religiously equally the race between Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden enters its final days? To answer that question, hither'southward a roundup of recent Pew Research Center findings. Unless otherwise noted, all findings are based on registered voters.

Political party identification

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

Around a third of registered voters in the U.S. (34%) identify every bit independents, while 33% identify as Democrats and 29% place as Republicans, according to a Middle 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 ane of the two major parties. When taking independents' partisan leanings into business relationship, 49% of all registered voters either identify as Democrats or lean to the 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, but there accept been some small shifts. One such shift is that the Democratic Party's advantage over the Republican Party in political party identification has get smaller since 2017. Of form, simply considering a registered voter identifies with or leans toward a detail political party does not necessarily mean they volition vote for a candidate of that party (or vote at all). In a study of validated voters in 2016, five% of Democrats and Democratic leaners reported voting for Trump, and four% 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.Southward., at 69% of the total as of 2019. Hispanic and Black registered voters each account for 11% of the total, while those from other racial or ethnic backgrounds account for the remainder (8%).

White voters business relationship for a macerated share of registered voters than in the past, failing from 85% in 1996 to 69% ahead of this year's election. This change has unfolded in both parties, but White voters have consistently deemed for a much larger share of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters than of Autonomous and Democratic-leaning voters (81% vs. 59% as of 2019).

The racial and ethnic composition of the electorate looks very unlike nationally than in several key battlefield states, according to a Center analysis of 2018 data based on eligible voters – that is, U.S. citizens ages 18 and older, regardless of whether or not they were registered to vote.

White Americans deemed for 67% of eligible voters nationally in 2018, but 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 reverse was true in some battleground states in the West and South. For example, the White share of eligible voters was beneath the national average in Nevada (58%), Florida (61%) and Arizona (63%). You tin can run across racial and ethnic breakdown of eligible voters in all l states – and how it changed between 2000 and 2018 – with this interactive feature.

Age and generation

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

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

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

Despite the long-term aging of registered voters, 2020 marks the first fourth dimension that many members of Generation Z – Americans born afterwards 1996 – will be able to participate in a presidential election. One-in-ten eligible voters this year are members of Generation Z, up from just iv% in 2016, according to Pew Inquiry Center projections. (Of class, not all eligible voters end up registering and actually casting a ballot.)

Education

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

Effectually two-thirds of registered voters in the U.S. (65%) do not have a college degree, while 36% do. Only the share of voters with a college degree has risen essentially since 1996, when 24% had one.

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

Religion

Christians business relationship for the majority of registered voters in the U.Due south. (64%). But this figure is down from 79% as recently as 2008. The share of voters who identify as religiously unaffiliated has almost doubled during that bridge, from xv% to 28%.

The share of White Christians in the electorate, in detail, has decreased in recent years. White evangelical Protestants business relationship for 18% of registered voters today, down from 21% in 2008. During the same period, the share of voters who are White not-evangelical Protestants fell from xix% to 13%, while the share of White Catholics fell from 17% to 12%.

Around 8-in-10 Republican registered voters (79%) are Christians, compared with about half (52%) of Democratic voters. In turn, Autonomous voters are much more likely than GOP voters to place as religiously unaffiliated (38% vs. 15%).

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 be motivated to cast a election and who volition not – is more difficult to respond.

For 1 thing, non all registered voters end up voting. In 2016, around 87% of registered voters cast a ballot, co-ordinate to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data before long after that year'southward ballot.

Likewise, voter turnout in the U.Southward. 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 college in 2008 than four years agone, for example.

Turnout also varies by demographic factors, including race and ethnicity, age and gender. The turnout charge per unit amongst Black Americans, for instance, exceeded the charge per unit among White Americans for the kickoff time in the 2012 presidential election, but that blueprint did non hold iv years later.

So what does all this mean for 2020? In that location are some early on indications that overall turnout could reach a record high this year, simply as turnout in the midterms ii years ago reached its highest point in a century. Just 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 uncertainty, and that dubiousness makes it even more difficult than usual to assess who will vote and who won't.