06-28-2022, 07:39 PM
I'm sure there's some of that going on, but I doubt it accounts for much, relative to the overall total.
I suspect it's primarily due to the fact that most voters are just not especially partisan. They vote R or D out of habit or inclination or the like, but they're not particularly committed to either. With everything that's been going on recently (COVID policy, inflation, big-city crime, yada yada), and with those things being widely perceived as being "owned" by the Ds, loose Ds are more likely to vote R than loose Rs are to vote D. I doubt that significantly many of those loose Ds are becoming partisan Rs.
The looseness of attachment to Rs and Ds is also exhibited in the number of people who identify as independents, which has been increasing steadily for many years now.
It will be interesting to watch this "switch" play out, to whatever extent it does.
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