correspondents dinner live turday on the c-span networks. announcer: if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage, you can find anytime online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates, and other debates feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these points of interest markers appear on the right of your screen when you hit play unselect videos. this timeline exit easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's points of interest. announcer: c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> oh you think this is just a community center? no, it's way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers to create

wi-fi enabled listings so students from low income families can get the tools they need to get ready for anything. announcer: comcast supports span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. joining us now is caroll doherty of the pew research center here to talk about new research in the party identification. thank you for giving us your time. guest: it is great to be here. we have been studying for quite a while. party identification is the most basic political measure there is. which party do you belong to. which party do you lean toward. we have data going back to the 1990's so we can see how party id has shifted. host: we will get more into the details. there are so many factors that go into how a person identifies. guest: this is one of the most

fundamental measures. it starts very young. how are you socialized? how do you grow up? what is your family like? what is their party affiliation? all of these are factors in party identification. host: the recent research in 2024, you asked people if they leaned democrat or republican. 49% of those who told you the information, 48% were leaning republican. as far as those numbers, what did that say about how things have changed? guest: they say a couple of things. these measures have been close over the past few decades. democrats had a slight edge four or five years ago. what you see is pretty even. even that reflects where the country is politically divided.

host: as far as the narrowing, talk about that. guest: we take an estimate every year. year-over-year since 2018 the democrats have had a five-point edge. now it is down to one. it is close within the margin of error. the two parties are even in party edification. host: just to show the viewers at home, it was those who were democrat or leaning democrat, 51% saying that republicans, 46% . guest: you can see how that has changed. host: as that shrinking is concerned, is there something there? is that unusual? guest: it is a significant shift but probably not that noteworthy because we have seen fluctuations over time. is not coming from any particular group. host: this is our guest and if you want to talk about not only

why you identify yourself literately but maybe some of the reasons why you do so and talk to our guest about their findings, you can call the line. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. text us your thoughts at (202) 748-8003. when it comes to the various factors, let's look at race. you have a chart with the majority of hispanic, black and asian voters and the party they favor which is the democratic party. can you elaborate? guest: what you see is these groups are pretty democratic. although the hispanic identification with the democratic party has narrowed and declined a little bit since 70% in 2016 to 61% today among registered voters. you see it in a lot of other surveys too where hispanics are

becoming less democratic. asian voters are very probably democratic. and black voters overwhelmingly are democratic in their identification. host: black voters, 83% of those identifying with the democratic party versus 12%. guest: a little bit of narrowing in recent years but not a huge shift. host: when it comes to the stark numbers, they don't tell you why they identify that way but are there conclusions you can draw? guest: if you look back at the recent history, this is not new in the identification of a lot of these groups whether they are white or black. the party identification trends do not change a lot from year to year. over time they tell a story. host: black voters, 56% of those identifying with the republican party, 41% with the democratic. guest: a little bit more they

were -- more of a republican edge. host: talk to us about how you compiled this information and how you weigh it. guest: it is a complicated process because our methods have changed over the years. we used to do telephone service. now we do an online panel. we have had to adjust. we asked each year, we have hundreds of thousands of interviews we are able to draw on to develop this. it is a rather complicated process. it is worth it. host: how many are in the sample? guest: per year, it could be as much as 20,000. in the last few years, more like 3000 to 10,000 because of -- we use the panel. host: elaborate on the panel. guest: this is our probability-based online panel where people are recruited to join and take surveys.

host: this is how you come up with the information as far as party identification. one of the things you also look at is the amount of education a person has and how does that determine how they choose a party? guest: education has been a bigger factor in party identification and politics in the last 10 or 15 years than it was previously. noncollege voters, these are voters who do not have a four year degree. they are increasingly identifying with the republican party, 63%. voters with a four degree more likely to be democrats, but evenly divided. host: those are some of the findings. 63%. 51 to 47. we see this education divide. you have seen it for the last 15 years.

guest: in every election, it is an important marker. we saw it in president biden's job approval. we saw it in former president trump's job approval. host: you looked at race. when it comes to hispanic voters with college backgrounds, 60% of those identifying with the democratic party versus 35%. black voters, that is where the largest margin is. guest: that is because it is the largest margin among black voters generally. we do not see as much of a difference between college and noncollege voters among hispanic, asian and black voters. host: again, party identification. if you want to ask questions about it (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8000 democrats.

independents, (202) 748-8002. ned is in maryland on the independent line. good morning. caller: thank you very much. it is an interesting topic. i want to declare upfront, i am a pisces. my heart is toward the democrats and my head leans toward the republicans. the question i have for you is the whole thing about leaning democrat and republican, one that ms. issue because of my old standing, people would consider me leaning republican. i have done a 180. now it would seem eileen democrat -- i lean democrat. it is really contingent on one or two issues whether someone is democrat or republican. thank you. guest: that is an interesting point. for some voters it can be a single issue or a group of issues that causes them to lean

or identify with a party or identify with a party or even to change parties. usually what we have signed -- what we have found is they do not tend to change their party identification that much. about 8% to 10% will change from year to year. it is not a lot of change on a year to year basis. host: because the caller was on the independent line, how do you account for independents? guest: identifying means you affiliate with that party. leaning is a softer measure. about one third identify as republicans, one third as democrats and about one third as independents. those who are independents tend

to lean and they often have strongly partisan views themselves. they are not nonpartisan. host: one of the other factors you look at his income and how that factors in to how someone might identify. voters on the lower income scale largely favoring the democratic party. as you get to the upper income scale, 53% lean democrat. 46% are republican. guest: that is a very interesting phenomenon. we have seen this in recent elections. when you look at exit polls in recent elections, democratic presidential candidates do better among lower income people while republicans do better with middle income voters. host: why do you think that is? guest: it is hard to say.

it is an interesting phenomenon. part of it reflects the changing democrats -- changing demographics of the democratic party. the college attainment among voters is related to higher income. host: we want to hear from roles on the line for -- we want to hear from rose on the line for republicans. caller: hi. i am wondering why the government essentially letting all of this stuff happen and no one is lifting a finger to do anything, get the kids outof he. they are just sitting there watching and letting god and do what he wants. i don't even like looking at him on tv. host: i have to stop you there,

not only for the background noise on the tv but goes beyond our discussion. fran on the democratic line. hi. caller: mr. carol, i wonder if you could explain something for me. when they talk about the blackmail vote, how they tend -- black male vote, how they tend not to vote and lately are turning more conservative. can you talk about that? caller: some surveys -- guest: some national surveys are finding that. it's a little bit on the margins. our party identifications, we don't show much of a gender gap between black voters. it is an interesting point, though. again, this party identification is a very broad measure, not predictive of how people vote, but we could see black men, women possibly voting -- nobody knows how they will vote exactly

in november. but this party identification sort of sets the parameters for how they affiliate politically. host: you talked about the income. you also take another measure of it, the gap between homeowners and renters. guest: some of that is about age. younger people tend to affiliate with the democratic party at higher rates, so renters tend to be younger, homeowners tend to be older, homeowners, identify as republican. host: 51% of those homeowners leaning republican. 64% of renters for the democratic party. guest: it is an indication of where they are in their lifecycle. essentially they are still renting so they tend to be younger people. host: let's hear from philip, new york city. republican line, on with carroll doherty from the pew research

center. caller: good morning. i changed from democrat to republican. i basically changed because i looked at the platforms, like the abortion issue. do you believe, during this time, people really pay attention to the platform, or a re we just a heard of whatever kind of animal -- herd of whatever kind of animal, just go with what our family dude, race did. whatever group we belong to. that is how we choose our political affiliation. guest: that's a great question. there are so many factors that go into it. what we see, often in the exit

polls that we see after an election, it has gotten increasingly polarized. 90% of democrats to the same for their candidate. people arrive at that decision in different ways. sometimes it can be an issue like abortion or immigration, or how the administration is handling the economy. sometimes it is just feeling more comfortable with a party. sometimes it feels like the opposing party is a danger to the country, so you may not like the party you are in, but it is better than the alternative. host: ray is in napa, california. democrats line. caller: i have a question. i have been asking conservatives this question forever. name one thing the conservative republican party has ever authored, past, and made into law that helped workers of america like the family leave act, minimum wage, any of that. they seem to go against everything that helps the

working-class people but working-class people seem to be going to them according to your graph. curious to your answer on that. host: before you go, why are you a democrat? caller: i work for the party that works for the people of america. fdr did more than anybody. i chose to be a worker bee, i choose the party that represent me the best. the family leave act, the republicans stripped out the part where we get unemployment insurance, minimum wage, they will not pass that. reagan fired the air traffic controllers which was the downhill for unions. i was in aerospace. i watched unions dissolve in front of my eyes after that. it doesn't make sense for working-class people to vote republican, at least i don't think so. host: thanks. guest: we don't have a measure of working-class as such, sort of a self-definition, but union

members tend to affiliate with the democratic party at pretty high rates. nonunion people along with the republican party. to the caller's question, you do see that pattern of union members, have seen that for quite a while, probably going back to the 1930's and before, identifying with the democratic party. host: william in mississippi for our guest, jackson, mississippi. independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call once again. i want to talk about some things that i heard. i don't disagree with too much of what your guest is saying, but i just want to point this out because i know people are listening. when they talk about the black mail loader, don't believe in that malarkey. i am 57 years old now. the people that sit up there and talk about them switching, 85,

90 percent of those people don't vote. either they are locked up, don't vote at all. i have had 10 conversations in the last three years about different things that trump didn't do, things that congress passed, that trump takes credit for. you hit these people with these facts, they say, i never thought about voting. but they try to influence a lot of people that do vote. people, listen to me. when it comes to black people, 85, 90% of people talking about switching over don't vote, never vote, never will. thank you for taking my call. guest: we don't have a measure in this report about intention to vote, likelihood of actually turning out to vote. will not be doing that throughout the campaign. again, this is a very broad

measure of which party you belong to. it is not indicative of your own interest in politics or engagement with politics but that is something we will study. it's a good point. just because you identify with a party doesn't mean that you will necessarily show up to the polls and vote for that party. host: from ida in tampa, florida. mcgrath line. caller: -- democrats line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was looking at some data in terms of shifting party identification. some of the data that is coming from i believe harvard university, the key predictive vote would be the muslim vote in some of these key swing states. if you have any data to support that, the shift in party identification, how that may affect this coming election considering the ongoing genocide in gaza. thank you. guest: that is very difficult to

say at this point. our data goes up to the end of -- we have a measure for 2024 for a muslim response but it is a relatively small number. this is a pretty democratic group generally across the country in the past but it is hard to say how the ongoing conflict in gaza will affect that population. and especially in states, it is hard to get a measure, because the population, segment of michigan voters, even though that is a relatively large segment for a state, is still pretty hard to measure. host: carroll doherty, you take a look at age when it comes to a person, identifying, found if you are between the ages of 18 and 24, chances are he will identify a democrat, 66, verses 34% republican. that republican and goes up as a person ages. guest: it is a linear

phenomenon. you see it every decade, the share identifying as republicans go up. it is very interesting, voters themselves on average is getting older, the country is getting older. in some ways this is plain to the advantage of the republicans. these older voters tend to vote at higher rates and tend to lean to the republican party. young people, very democratic, doesn't seem to be eroding in any way, the dominance the democrats have. but their turnout levels are much lower. host: when it comes to aid, by the time a person hits 50, 59, 50% identifying as republican. where can they find this report by the way? guest: at our website at pew research.org. host: if you want to go to the

website and check it out yourself, ask the guest about it, you can do that during the time we have left in the segment. mark in sanborn, new york. independent line. go ahead, you are on. caller: hello. i would like to ask mr. carroll doherty, i've never seen anything on poles about disabled people and how they vote. i would like to know if you have a chart that you can show that shows disabled people, because we care about things that other people don't care about. we care about health care, social security, and that type of thing. if you would, can you comment on that? guest: we don't have that in this report. in the past and probably in the future, we will get to that. disability, again, one of those

hard things to measure. an important population. as a population ages, more and more people identify with having at least some disability. it tends to be a democratic-leaning group, at least it was in the past, but we have to see where that affiliation is today. host: kenneth is up next in illinois. republican line. caller: good morning. i am a retired army veteran and i live in illinois, and i used to be a longtime democrat. recently i switched to republican due to the fact of the immigration circumstances coming in and giving taxpayer dollars to them. another reason, reparations. like i say, i vote for policy, and that is the reason i switched. thank you. guest: immigration is obviously a big issue this campaign.

we see the government, the administration gets a marks for its handling of immigration, the illegal immigration issue, the border crisis. it could definitely move some voters like that caller. host: you have some tracking, as far as veterans are concerned. here are the numbers. registered voters who are military veterans, 63% say they are republican or lead republican versus 35% say they are democrat or lean democrat. breaks down from there. fill in the blanks. guest: the veteran population, for years and years, have been more republican leaning. no question about that. also getting smaller with a number of americans actually serving in the military, declined over the years, but still an important population, remains pretty solidly republican. host: let's go to scott in utah.

democrats line. caller: hello. i think i have a pretty good theory about why people change parties. both my grandparents were democrats because they were hard-working middle-class people. one was a farmer, the other is a worker. to me, when it shifted, was when the gay people, minorities started to get more power. those hats say, the magas want to make america great again to make america white again. they cannot accept these changes happening in society. they are both really voting against themselves. the republicans are still for the big corporations, democrats are for the small man.

i appreciate you guys. thank you. guest: you see socioeconomic differences, class differences, educational differences. if you track the data back all the way to 1930, you would see a huge democratic advantage. the last 30 years we have seen neither party has a significant advantage. it reflects what you see in the presidential election. pretty close in the last 30 years. host: i don't know how strict numbers you have as far as parents identifying. guest: we have asked people if they belong to the same party as their parents. they tend to, it is not automatic, for sure. it has an effect. host: you take a look if a person lives in a suburb or city, how they might trend. how do those numbers shake out? guest: that is one of the biggest changes we have seen in the last 30 years, there were real voter aligning with the

republican party 60%. that is up in the last 30 years significantly. the suburbs are still the political battleground, as always, will be this year, the next election. urban counties, 60% identify with democrats. host: look at the breakdown. 60% versus 37% in urban counties. rural counties, 60% versus 35. guest: it is a pretty stark difference and has grown over the years. not the urban/suburban side, the rural side. host: carroll doherty with us, behind the research that you are seeing from pew. if you have questions, you can call (202) 748-8001 four republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independent, (202) 748-8002. this is a leap from the bronx. independent line. . caller: yes, i am in one of

those urban areas. i am a western caribbean american. we usually get conscripted into the african-american, what they call the black community block. i wonder if that is how you put us in that vote? as far as i'm concerned, i know these caribbean countries are very conservative, hold a lot of the republican views and beliefs especially when it comes to gay rights, all those other things. i find it very curious that we continuously get conscripted into the african-american block. i wonder if that skews the numbers a bit? guest: this report does obscure the complexity within every group that we study including black voters. it is how people identify themselves. but this includes recent

immigrants in some cases. among hispanics there is a great deal of diversity in the population depending on which country of origin. asian voters as well. there is a lot of complexity and diversity even within these groups we study. you are right about that. guest: howard in illinois. republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. you had a call earlier from mississippi concerning the black vote, when he asked what republican party had done for blacks in general. i would say the 13, 14th, 15th amendment, 1964 civil rights act, republicans passed that. most of the major legislation that perpetuated the social welfare state unfortunately was republicans who gave them the majority vote. the southern democrat party didn't have the votes. host: before you go, may i ask,

why do you identify as a republican? caller: because what the democrat party has done and is doing is creating all of these entitlements. when you ask, who is paying for it? i was in a union. my salary went up exponentially because of union negotiations and inflation. eventually we are going to have to pay for it. we are $35 trillion in debt. where is this money coming from? host: that is howard in illinois. he takes an economic view. guest: and the deficit, our polling shows it is a much higher concern these days among republicans than democrats. host: let's talk about religion. you talk about how a person's religious beliefs may impact. guest: first off, the country is becoming less religious overall.

the number of americans who don't identify with religion has grown over the last 20 years. a lot of those voters are aligned with the democratic party, 70% of those voters who are not with a major denomination identify as democrats. that is one of the big changes we have seen. what you are looking at there is the composition chart. these are the compositions of the parties, who mix them up. the democrats is a diverse religious group there. modest majority are actually christian. 80% of republicans are christian. that is a big difference there. and the democrats have changed a lot over the years and the republicans haven't in terms of their religious identification. host: because of the diversity of religions. you identify protestant, catholic, breaks down from there, but that unaffiliated number, to show all voters, in 2008, 15% of those.

that has grown to 26%. guest: our data shows a big rise in religiously unaffiliated. church attendance is down. we see fewer people identifying with religion. host: all of this available at pew research.org if you want to look at it yourself. on our lawn for democrats, ally. hello. caller: good morning. please if he could touch on the most annoying and probably most dangerous single voter issues. if you could identify them. thank you, sir. guest: there are not many single issue voters. whether it is abortion, immigration, gun control, something like that. not too many voters.

usually a person aligns with a party for a variety of reasons, policies. they may disagree with some of those policies. not too many single issue voters in the current political environment. host: pat from the idaho. independent line. caller: thank you for having me. just want to say, i lived in california my whole life. i am retired. i was a strong democrat. i live in idaho now, a republican state. i will tell you one thing, i have never seen a state so clean. people are nice, no graffiti, no homeless. people just seem to be happy here. they are more into their families. it could be because it is a lot of mormons here, i don't know, but california was really disappointing me. their politics have gone way too far.

and i was a strong union member. i truly believed in the democratic party, and they have done a lot of good for the union, but i don't think they are as strong and honest to people as they used to be. that is all i have to say. thank you for having me. guest: seems like we have gotten a few union callers. it is not a monolith. 60% or so of unit members identify as democrat. that means roughly 40% identify as republicans. the caller mentioned mormons. that is one of the strongest republican groups among religious affiliations. host: another breakdown you take is the classification among conservatives versus a moderate versus a liberal. why take a look at those? guest: that is the other piece of this, which is your ideology as opposed to your party. are you a conservative republican? we even break it down, are you a

very conservative republican? very liberal, very conservative. you see the party is different, more conservatives in the republican party than there are liberals in the democratic party. democrats are split between liberals and moderates. conservatives make up 70% of all republicans. host: how do you identify a moderate versus a liberal in this case? guest: self identification, how they describe themselves. host: kim in iowa. republican line. you are next. caller: good morning. i have never done this before. when you talk about the young people who tend to vote for democrats, could it be that democrats seem to buy votes? the younger generation has no work ethic, they would rather sit back and collect welfare. back in the mid-2000's when the

unemployment, they were doing the extension for the unemployment. democrats wanted to give the extension, republicans said no. i tend to go with republicans. so many out there don't want to work and just want a handout. student loans taken care of. is that why younger people tend to go more democrat? guest: that is a tough question. what is interesting about our data is that people assume that this has always been the case, that young people identify with the democratic party. we have data from 1999 showing virtually no age difference at all across generations in terms of their party identification. this started in the 2005, 2008, started with president barack obama to some degree, before that with the kerry-bush race. now pretty established in the last 15 years where younger

people are strongly on the democratic side. host: here is a subset that you offer among young people, men and women. guest: same differences among voters that you see overall with age groups. we don't see much difference. there has been some suggestion that young men might be tilting a little bit to the republican party. we don't see that much in our data. the same gender gap across age group. host: women, 62, men, ages of 26-39. when you get to the age of 50, 40 1% of men identifying as democrat or leaning democratic. 57% for republicans. 47% for women. guest: the gender gap, it is kind of a pillar of politics the last 40 years. started in the 1980's. it is not huge right now, about

eight points. the share identifying with the democratic party, women are eight points more likely than men to identify as democrats. but you see it across all groups, this gender gap. host: it doesn't matter the age. let's go to nancy in connecticut. democrats line. caller: hello, good morning. have you ever asked people in your survey if they are optimists or pessimists? in my experience, many of my friends who are optimistic are democrats, more open-minded, hence they vote for biden. some of my friends who are pessimists are republicans, and they tend to do a lot more complaining. hence, they voted for trump. guest: we have never exactly asked that question. we have asked how the country is doing, if you are satisfied things are going. we ask about the future of the

country, if you are optimistic. lots of pessimism on both sides in terms of how the country is doing, will be doing. people are not too optimistic even on the democratic side about the future of the country right now. a lot of reasons for that i think. right now, this is not an optimistic period among the public. host: you have addressed gender and marital status but you also look at sexual orientation when it comes to these trends. guest: we find lgbt people pretty strongly identify as democrats, pretty overwhelmingly. >> live to a discussion on u.s. defense strategy in space with lieutenant general shawn bratton. live coverage on c-span. >> the release of the 2024 commercial space strategy comes at a pivotal moment. the u.s. government had a monopoly and the space force