Gallup: More Than a Dozen Blue States Turn Purple

More than a dozen blue states turned purple between 2008 and 2010, Gallup found in its analysis of party affiliations in daily tracking polls, Politico reports.

Based on the party affiliations that people provided to pollsters, 14 states were considered solidly Democratic in 2010, with Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents outweighing Republicans by at least 10 percentage points. In 2009, that number was 24, and in 2008, when President Barack Obama was elected, 30 states were solidly Democratic by Gallup’s measure.

But a shift away from the Democratic Party hasn’t necessarily brought a windfall to the GOP. In 2008, four states were considered solidly Republican, and another one leaned Republican.

In 2010, five states were solidly Republican and another five leaned Republican, meaning that people identifying themselves as Republicans and Republican-leaning independents outnumbered Democrats by more than 5 percentage points and fewer than 10 percentage points.