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. 19, 2020, in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The United States holds a presidential election every four years, but information technology's non just the candidates and problems that modify from 1 campaign cycle to the side by side. The electorate itself is in a slow simply constant state of flux, also.

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

So what does the 2020 electorate look like politically, demographically and religiously as the race between Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden enters its last days? To answer that question, here's a roundup of contempo Pew Research 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

Around a 3rd of registered voters in the U.S. (34%) identify every bit independents, while 33% identify equally Democrats and 29% identify as Republicans, co-ordinate to a Middle analysis of Americans' partisan identification based on surveys of more 12,000 registered voters in 2018 and 2019.

Near independents in the U.Due south. lean toward one 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 every bit Republicans or lean to the GOP.

Party identification amid registered voters hasn't changed dramatically over the by 25 years, but there have been some modest shifts. One such shift is that the Democratic Political party's reward over the Republican Party in party identification has become smaller since 2017. Of course, only because a registered voter identifies with or leans toward a particular political 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, five% of Democrats and Autonomous 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 make up the largest share of registered voters in the U.Southward., at 69% of the full as of 2019. Hispanic and Blackness registered voters each account for 11% of the total, while those from other racial or ethnic backgrounds business relationship for the balance (8%).

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

The racial and ethnic composition of the electorate looks very different nationally than in several key battleground states, according to a Middle analysis 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, simply 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 Southward. For example, the White share of eligible voters was beneath the national boilerplate in Nevada (58%), Florida (61%) and Arizona (63%). You lot tin see racial and ethnic breakdown of eligible voters in all 50 states – and how it changed between 2000 and 2018 – with this interactive characteristic.

Age 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 half of Republican and GOP-leaning voters (56%) are ages 50 and older, up from 39% in 1996. And among Democratic and Autonomous-leaning voters, one-half are 50 and older, up from 41% in 1996.

Another way to consider the aging of the electorate is to await at median age. The median historic period among all registered voters increased from 44 in 1996 to 50 in 2019. It 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 built-in after 1996 – volition exist able to participate in a presidential ballot. One-in-ten eligible voters this year are members of Generation Z, upwards from just 4% in 2016, according to Pew Research Eye projections. (Of course, 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

Around two-thirds of registered voters in the U.Due south. (65%) do non accept a higher degree, while 36% do. Merely the share of voters with a college degree has risen substantially since 1996, when 24% had one.

Voters who identify with the Democratic Political party or lean toward it are much more likely than their Republican counterparts to take a college degree (41% vs. 30%). In 1996, the reverse was true: 27% of GOP voters had a college degree, compared with 22% of Autonomous voters.

Religion

Christians business relationship for the majority of registered voters in the U.S. (64%). But this effigy is downward from 79% as recently equally 2008. The share of voters who identify as religiously unaffiliated has well-nigh doubled during that span, from 15% to 28%.

The share of White Christians in the electorate, in particular, has decreased in contempo years. White evangelical Protestants account for eighteen% of registered voters today, down from 21% in 2008. During the same menses, the share of voters who are White not-evangelical Protestants savage from xix% to 13%, while the share of White Catholics fell from 17% to 12%.

Effectually eight-in-ten Republican registered voters (79%) are Christians, compared with about half (52%) of Autonomous voters. In turn, Democratic voters are much more than likely 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 nearly 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 time. But the disquisitional question of voter turnout – who will exist motivated to cast a ballot and who will not – is more difficult to answer.

For one thing, not all registered voters end up voting. In 2016, around 87% of registered voters cast a ballot, according to a Pew Research Center assay of Census Bureau information before long afterward that twelvemonth's election.

Also, voter turnout in the U.S. is non a abiding: It tin 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 example.

Turnout also varies past demographic factors, including race and ethnicity, age and gender. The turnout rate amid Black Americans, for case, exceeded the rate among 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 on indications that overall turnout could reach a record high this year, merely as turnout in the midterms two years ago reached its highest signal 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 ballot have created widespread uncertainty, and that dubiousness makes information technology even more than hard than usual to assess who will vote and who won't.