The next time someone talks about how this election has fundamentally upset existing patterns of support for Democrats and Republicans, remember the table above. Based on our polling and analysis, 88% of voters who voted for Obama or Romney in 2012 and who will vote in 2016 are voting for the same party as last time. Romney supporters almost all support Trump; Obama supporters almost all support Clinton.
This is not a pattern that has only emerged in the final days of the campaign, the rates of switching were nearly as high in the middle of September, before any of the debates. The discussion below focuses on those who are switching, but it is important to recognise the very limited degree to which there is any realignment of US politics happening at the level of individual voters.
However, while these rates of switching are low in absolute terms, they are higher than the corresponding figures were in our polling just before the 2012 election, when compared to 2008. In that election, Obama and Romney both retained over 90% of the 2008 vote for their parties.
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