Voters Rarely Switch Parties, but Recent Shifts Further Educational, Racial Divergence

Pew Research Center conducted study to track how individuals’ partisan identities have shifted.

Overwhelming majorities of both Republican and Democratic voters have retained their party affiliation over the past two years .

Since 2018 , comparably small shares of registered voters in both parties have changed parties.

Party switchers are less politically engaged than consistent partisans.

At the same time, white voters with a college degree have trended toward the Democratic Party . White voters with a college degree who were Republicans in 2018 are about twice as likely to have left their party than white voters with a college degree who were Democrats in 2018 ( 8% of white, college-educated voters who were Republicans in 2018 are now Democrats , versus 4% of white college-educated voters who were Democrats in 2018 but are now Republicans ). Nonwhite voters who were Republicans in 2018 were much less likely to stick with the Republican Party than were nonwhite voters who were Democrats ..