Which Political Party Drinks More Alcohol?

Los Angeles Chargers fans drink Bud Light during an NFL football game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2025, in Inglewood, Calif. (Photo: AP Photo/Kyusung Gong)

A Gallup poll published over the summer revealed that the percentage of American adults who say they consume alcohol has fallen to 54%, the lowest on record since 1939. Breaking down the trend by gender, race, age, annual household income and party identity, pollsters discovered that the single most dramatic rift was found between self-identified Democrats and Republicans.

According to the study, the number of Republicans who say they drink fell from 65% to 46% over the past two years, the largest shift of any subgroup specified in the findings. Independents dropped from 61% to 55% in the same time frame, while Democrats decreased slightly from 64% to 61%.

According to the report, that means Democrats now out-drink Republicans by a significant margin.

Gallup didn’t provide any explanation for the shift, nor did it identify where particular groups overlapped. For example, the poll claimed that alcohol consumption among 18- to 34-year-olds fell by 9%, among white adults by 11%, and among annual household incomes over $100,000 by 13%. But the poll didn’t explain how (or if) any of those intersections impacted one or another, making it all the more difficult to explain why Republicans — treated by the study as a single homogenous group — appear to be giving up drinking at record high rates.

The Trump Administration’s Make America Healthy Again initiative might be partially responsible. Over the past year, government officials have renewed scrutiny into food dyes, additives, dietary supplements and environmental toxins, all part of a push by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to treat the nation’s purported chronic illness epidemic. MAHA has coincided with — and perhaps overlapped — a fast-growing consumer wellness movement. Raw milk and protein maxing are firmly in the zeitgeist, and it stands to reason that drinking may be waning as a result.

The theory only explains half of a conflicting story. Though Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services has pursued dozens of policy changes, alcohol advisories have been noticeably absent from the agenda.

In June, Reuters reported that the DHHS is revising its long-standing recommendation that adults limit alcohol intake to two or fewer drinks per day. According to unnamed insiders, officials have proposed a brief warning urging Americans to consume in moderation. The change would signal a major shift in messaging, softening the federal stance toward alcohol and disregarding recent findings from the U.S. Surgeon General that linked drinking to at least seven types of cancer.

Interestingly, Gallup respondents who said they don’t drink didn’t seem to correlate with respondents who said that drinking was bad for health. The poll found that 58% of Democrats viewed moderate alcohol consumption (defined as one to two drinks per day) as unhealthy, compared to only 55% of independents and 44% of Republicans.

The statistics suggest that MAHA and related health movements have only had a marginal impact on Republican drinking preferences. Other commonly speculated causes for reduced drinking  — marijuana legalization, weight loss drugs and rising social media use — may be at play, though few studies have examined how those trends fall along party lines.