D.C., Hawaii Most Democratic, Utah Most Republican State in '11; North Dakota and Louisiana tilt more Republican than they did in 2010.
Byline: Jeffrey M. Jones
Synopsis: Hawaii ranks as the most Democratic state in the United States in the first half of 2011, along with the District of Columbia. Utah is the most Republican state. Party affiliation in most states is similar to what Gallup measured in 2010, with only two states showing meaningful shifts.
PRINCETON, NJ -- Hawaii shows the largest advantage for the Democratic Party over the Republican Party among U.S. states, along with the District of Columbia, in the first half of 2011. The most Republican state is Utah.
The results are based on interviews with more than 170,000 U.S. adults as part of Gallup Daily tracking from January through June, including 1,000 or more adults in 41 states. Each state's data are weighted to be demographically representative of that state's adult population.
Nationwide, Democrats had a slight advantage in the first half of 2011 in the Gallup tracking data, with 44% of Americans identifying as or leaning Democratic and 40% identifying as or leaning Republican.
Gallup classifies states as being more Democratic, or more Republican, based on the difference between the percentage of state residents who identify as or lean Democratic and the percentage who identify as or lean Republican.
These figures take the partisan leanings of independents into account. This gives a truer sense of the relative strength of each party in a state, given wide disparities in the percentage of political independents. These range from lows of 30% independent identification in the District of Columbia and 31% in Pennsylvania to highs of 60% in Rhode Island and 59% in Alaska. Many states with high proportions of independents are dominated by one party electorally.
The most Democratic states are concentrated largely on the East coast -- among the top 10, only Hawaii and Illinois are not located in New England or the Mid-Atlantic region. The four most Republican states are in the West, with 5 of the top 10 coming from that region. The patterns for party affiliation by region are similar to what Gallup finds for presidential job approval.
The most balanced states politically in the first half of 2011 were Virginia and Mississippi (both are evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats), Colorado (with a one-percentage-point Republican advantage), Missouri, Arizona, and Arkansas (with two-point Republican advantages), and Georgia (with a two-point Democratic advantage).
The party affiliation estimates are based...
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