Republicans lean more toward marriage than Democrats, says Gallup poll

Working-age Republicans are 20% likelier than Democrats and independents to be married in 2024, according to new Gallup polling that shows a growing partisan divide.

Fewer than half of Democrats are married, down sharply from 1980, the last time both parties had parity on the issue in the Gallup poll. Among Republicans ages 30 to 50 who responded to a survey during the first five months of this year, 67% were in wedlock compared to 49% of Democrats and 46% of independents.

Gallup reported Thursday that 90% of Democrats were married in the 1950s-70s, 60% after 1990 and just under half after 2021. Independents have followed a similar decline in marriage rates.

The share of married Republicans has fallen less sharply from a peak of 90% in 1965 to less than 80% since 1990. According to the polling company, the Republican marriage rate has averaged 18 percentage points above the rates for Democrats and independents since 2000.

In a summary of the findings, Gallup analysts Jonathan Rothwell and Frank Newport attributed the widening gap in marriage rates to “Republicans valuing it more than Democrats” as the latter group becomes more secularized and individualistic.

“Republicans are much more religious than Democrats, and religious people are more likely than nonreligious people to be married,” they wrote.

At every level of religious observance, the Republicans they surveyed were “far more likely than Democrats” to be married this year. 

While the share of working-age Republicans who reported never having been married doubled from 1979 to 2024, Gallup noted that it more than tripled for Democrats.

At the same time, the company found Democrats were only two percentage points likelier than Republicans to be living out of wedlock with a partner this year, suggesting larger numbers of them live alone.

“The partisan marriage gap has expanded largely because Democrats are increasingly forgoing marriage altogether,” the two analysts said.

Their summary also noted that Republicans have given “the most moral weight” to marriage in other polls conducted since 2001. That includes Republicans being increasingly likelier than Democrats and independents to agree in surveys that marrying makes people happier, that marriage is not an outdated institution and that it’s unacceptable to have a child out of wedlock. 

As cultural attitudes toward marriage have plunged among Democrats and independents in decades of polling, Gallup noted that “Republicans stand out for bucking the trend.”

The company conducted a telephone survey of 339 Republicans, 360 Democrats and 720 independents through its Gallup Poll Social Series between January and May. The margins of error for these groups and other polling data varied widely.