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

The United States holds a presidential election every four years, just it'south not just the candidates and problems that modify from one campaign bicycle to the adjacent. The electorate itself is in a tedious but constant land 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 get-go fourth dimension this year, the immigrants who take become naturalized citizens and can cast ballots of their own, or the longer-term shifts in the land's racial and indigenous makeup. These and other factors ensure that no two presidential electorates await exactly the same.

Then 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's a roundup of contempo 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.Due south. (34%) identify as independents, while 33% identify as Democrats and 29% identify as Republicans, according to a Eye analysis of Americans' partisan identification based on surveys of more than than 12,000 registered voters in 2018 and 2019.

Well-nigh independents in the U.S. lean toward i of the two major parties. When taking independents' partisan leanings into account, 49% of all registered voters either place equally Democrats or lean to the party, while 44% identify equally Republicans or lean to the GOP.

Party identification amongst registered voters hasn't changed dramatically over the past 25 years, but in that location have been some modest shifts. I such shift is that the Autonomous Party'due south advantage over the Republican Political party in political party identification has become smaller since 2017. Of course, simply because a registered voter identifies with or leans toward a detail political party does not necessarily mean they will vote for a candidate of that political party (or vote at all). In a study of validated voters in 2016, 5% 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 make up the largest share of registered voters in the U.Due south., at 69% of the full as of 2019. Hispanic and Black registered voters each business relationship for 11% of the full, while those from other racial or ethnic backgrounds business relationship for the residue (viii%).

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

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

White Americans accounted 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 S. For example, the White share of eligible voters was below the national boilerplate in Nevada (58%), Florida (61%) and Arizona (63%). You 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.S. electorate is aging: 52% of registered voters are ages l and older, upwards 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 amidst Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, half are l and older, upward from 41% in 1996.

Another fashion to consider the crumbling of the electorate is to look at median historic period. The median historic period among all registered voters increased from 44 in 1996 to 50 in 2019. It rose from 43 to 52 amid Republican registered voters and from 45 to 49 among Democratic registered voters.

Despite the long-term aging of registered voters, 2020 marks the first time that many members of Generation Z – Americans built-in later on 1996 – will exist able to participate in a presidential ballot. 1-in-ten eligible voters this year are members of Generation Z, upwards from but 4% in 2016, according to Pew Inquiry Center projections. (Of course, not all eligible voters finish 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.South. (65%) do non have a college caste, while 36% exercise. Merely the share of voters with a higher degree has risen substantially since 1996, when 24% had one.

Voters who identify with the Democratic Party or lean toward it are much more than probable than their Republican counterparts to take a college degree (41% vs. xxx%). 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 majority of registered voters in the U.S. (64%). But this figure is down from 79% every bit recently every bit 2008. The share of voters who identify every bit religiously unaffiliated has almost doubled during that span, from 15% to 28%.

The share of White Christians in the electorate, in item, has decreased in contempo years. White evangelical Protestants account for 18% of registered voters today, down from 21% in 2008. During the same period, the share of voters who are White non-evangelical Protestants fell from xix% 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 half (52%) of Democratic voters. In turn, Democratic voters are much more likely than GOP voters to identify 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 key question: What about voter turnout?

Turnout in U.S. presidential elections

Surveys can provide reliable estimates nearly registered voters in the U.S. and how their partisan, demographic and religious profile has changed over fourth dimension. But the disquisitional question of voter turnout – who will be motivated to cast a ballot and who will not – is more difficult to answer.

For ane thing, not all registered voters cease upwards voting. In 2016, around 87% of registered voters cast a ballot, according to a Pew Enquiry Heart assay of Demography Bureau information shortly afterwards that twelvemonth'south election.

Besides, voter turnout in the U.S. is not a abiding: It tin can and does alter from one election to the next. The share of registered voters who bandage a ballot was college in 2008 than four years ago, for example.

Turnout also varies by demographic factors, including race and ethnicity, historic period and gender. The turnout rate among Black Americans, for instance, exceeded the rate amid White Americans for the first time in the 2012 presidential ballot, but that pattern did not hold iv years later.

So what does all this mean for 2020? There are some early indications that overall turnout could achieve a record loftier this year, simply equally turnout in the midterms two years ago reached its highest point in a century. But 2020 is far from an ordinary twelvemonth. The combination of a global pandemic and public concerns about the integrity of the ballot have created widespread doubt, and that uncertainty makes information technology even more difficult than usual to assess who will vote and who won't.