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 bandage early on ballots on October. 19, 2020, in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The United States holds a presidential election every four years, but it's not just the candidates and issues that alter from one entrada cycle to the next. The electorate itself is in a slow but constant state of flux, too.

The profile of the U.South. electorate tin change for a variety of reasons. Consider the millions of Americans who have turned eighteen and can vote for president for the first fourth dimension this year, the immigrants who have get naturalized citizens and tin cast ballots of their own, or the longer-term shifts in the country's racial and indigenous makeup. These and other factors ensure that no two presidential electorates look exactly the same.

So what does the 2020 electorate await like politically, demographically and religiously as the race between Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden enters its concluding days? To respond that question, hither's a roundup of contempo Pew Inquiry 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 third of registered voters in the U.S. (34%) identify as independents, while 33% place every bit Democrats and 29% identify as Republicans, co-ordinate to a Center analysis of Americans' partisan identification based on surveys of more than 12,000 registered voters in 2018 and 2019.

Most independents in the U.S. lean toward one of the ii major parties. When taking independents' partisan leanings into account, 49% of all registered voters either place as Democrats or lean to the political party, while 44% identify as Republicans or lean to the GOP.

Party identification amongst registered voters hasn't inverse dramatically over the past 25 years, only there accept been some pocket-sized shifts. One such shift is that the Democratic Party's reward over the Republican Party in political party identification has become smaller since 2017. Of grade, only considering a registered voter identifies with or leans toward a item party does non necessarily mean they will vote for a candidate of that political party (or vote at all). In a written report of validated voters in 2016, 5% 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.S., at 69% of the total as of 2019. Hispanic and Black registered voters each account for 11% of the full, while those from other racial or ethnic backgrounds business relationship for the residual (8%).

White voters account for a macerated share of registered voters than in the past, declining from 85% in 1996 to 69% ahead of this year'southward 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 Democratic-leaning voters (81% vs. 59% as of 2019).

The racial and ethnic composition of the electorate looks very different nationally than in several key battleground states, according to a Centre analysis of 2018 information 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 deemed for 67% of eligible voters nationally in 2018, merely they represented a much larger share in several primal battlegrounds in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, including Wisconsin (86%), Ohio (82%), Pennsylvania (81%) and Michigan (79%). The opposite was truthful in some battleground states in the W and Southward. For example, the White share of eligible voters was beneath the national average in Nevada (58%), Florida (61%) and Arizona (63%). You can run into racial and indigenous breakdown of eligible voters in all 50 states – and how it changed between 2000 and 2018 – with this interactive feature.

Age and generation

The aging U.S. electorate: A majority of Republican voters - and half of Democrats - are 50 and older

The U.South. electorate is aging: 52% of registered voters are ages fifty and older, up from 41% in 1996. This shift has occurred in both partisan coalitions. More than one-half of Republican and GOP-leaning voters (56%) are ages fifty and older, up from 39% in 1996. And amid Autonomous and Autonomous-leaning voters, half are l and older, up from 41% in 1996.

Some other way to consider the aging of the electorate is to look at median age. The median age 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 amongst Democratic registered voters.

Despite the long-term aging of registered voters, 2020 marks the first time that many members of Generation Z – Americans born subsequently 1996 – volition be able to participate in a presidential election. Ane-in-ten eligible voters this year are members of Generation Z, upwardly from just 4% in 2016, co-ordinate to Pew Research Centre projections. (Of form, non all eligible voters end upward 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.S. (65%) practice non have a college degree, while 36% practise. Just the share of voters with a college caste has risen substantially since 1996, when 24% had i.

Voters who identify with the Democratic Party or lean toward it are much more probable than their Republican counterparts to have a college degree (41% vs. thirty%). In 1996, the reverse was true: 27% of GOP voters had a higher degree, compared with 22% of Democratic voters.

Organized religion

Christians account for the majority of registered voters in the U.S. (64%). But this figure is down from 79% as recently every bit 2008. The share of voters who identify equally religiously unaffiliated has almost doubled during that span, from 15% to 28%.

The share of White Christians in the electorate, in detail, has decreased in recent years. White evangelical Protestants business relationship for 18% of registered voters today, downwardly from 21% in 2008. During the same period, the share of voters who are White not-evangelical Protestants fell from 19% 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 one-half (52%) of Democratic voters. In plow, Democratic voters are much more than likely than GOP voters to place 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 key question: What about voter turnout?

Turnout in U.S. presidential elections

Surveys tin can provide reliable estimates about registered voters in the U.S. and how their partisan, demographic and religious profile has inverse over time. Just the critical question of voter turnout – who will be motivated to cast a ballot and who will non – is more than difficult to answer.

For one thing, not all registered voters end up voting. In 2016, around 87% of registered voters bandage a ballot, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data soon after that yr's election.

Likewise, voter turnout in the U.S. is non a constant: It tin can and does change from i election to the next. The share of registered voters who cast a ballot was higher in 2008 than 4 years ago, for example.

Turnout also varies past demographic factors, including race and ethnicity, age and gender. The turnout charge per unit among Black Americans, for instance, exceeded the rate among White Americans for the first time in the 2012 presidential election, simply that pattern did not hold four years later.

So what does all this hateful for 2020? There are some early indications that overall turnout could reach a record high this year, just as turnout in the midterms ii years ago reached its highest point in a century. But 2020 is far from an ordinary yr. The combination of a global pandemic and public concerns about the integrity of the election have created widespread doubtfulness, and that uncertainty makes information technology even more than hard than usual to assess who will vote and who won't.