Pew survey: Dems changing more rapidly than GOP

The Democratic Party is becoming more diverse, less religious and better educated at a faster pace than the country itself. Meanwhile, the opposite is true for the Republican Party.

A Pew Research Center survey released Tuesday found that 57% of registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters are non-Hispanic whites. That number is down nearly 20 points from 1992 when 76% of the party was white.

Across the aisle, 86% of registered Republicans and Republican-leaning voters are non-Hispanic whites. That share was 93% in 1992.

The majority of Americans are religious, but the number of registered voters who describe themselves “as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular’” has nearly tripled between 1996 and 2016, from 8% to 21%.

In 1996, one-tenth of Democratic voters were not religiously affiliated. By 2016, that share was 29%. The number of registered Republicans and Republican-leaning registered voters has gone from 6% to 12% in that same time frame.

The number of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters who have obtained at least a college degree went from 21% in 1992 to 37% today.

Meanwhile, the number of Republicans with at least a college degree has increased by just 3 points in that same time period. In 1992, 28% of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters had at least a college degree, and today that share is 31%.

American voters in general who have at least a college degree has gone up 10 points since 1992, from 23% to 33%.

The 1992 poll of 6,392 people had a margin of error of 1.4 points, and the 1996 poll included 7,988 people and had a margin of error of 1.2 points. The 2016 survey included 8,113 people and had a margin of error of 1.2 points.