Interesting. Richard Florida over at Sullivan’s place links to a Gallup poll finding that “The decline in Republican Party affiliation among Americans in recent years … has occurred among nearly every major demographic subgroup.”

Notes the poll:

the Republicans’ losses tend to be greater among groups that were not strong GOP supporters to begin with. These include self-identified liberals and moderates, church non-attenders, and lower-income and young adults. Thus, a big factor in the GOP’s overall decline is the Democratic Party’s consolidating its support among normally Democratically leaning groups.

In turn, the GOP has generally avoided significant losses among only its most loyal groups, including frequent churchgoers and self-identified conservatives. The Republican Party maintains majority support among these two groups.

This answers a big question for me.

One might have assumed - after the party nominated McCain, a “RINO” - that conservatives would have left the party, feeling betrayed. But Gallup suggests that everyone but conservatives are leaving the party. Conservatives have now firmly seized the party and made it theirs; and it now more fully reflects the views of that 25 percent of the electorate than ever before.

How this wins future elections remains a mystery - though perusing the comments on various conservative blogs, the assumption seems to be that once the Obama and the Democrat Party goes down in flames, the Republicans will just step in to show the nation that, see, we were right all along!