New data shows Republicans on verge of falling to third-party status in California
On Friday, the office of California Secretary of State Alex Padilla posted updated voter registration statistics in advance of the states June 5 primary, and the data shows a continuation of the same bleak trend line for Golden State Republicans that weve written about in prior cycles: The GOP is simply hemorrhaging voters, both in raw numbers and as a percentage of registered voters.
Overall, just over 4.8 million Californians are currently registered as Republicans, representing 25.4 percent of the total electorate. Thats a loss of almost half a million votersand a huge drop from the partys 36 percent sharesince the end of 1997, the first year for which statistics are available. And that drop comes despite the fact that Californias population has jumped from 32.5 million to 39.3 million over the last two decades.
During that same 20-year time period, meanwhile, Democrats gained nearly 1.7 million new registered voters, bringing their tally to 8.5 million. Despite that growth, though, Democratic voter registration as a share of the electorate has mostly flatlined over that time period, settling from 46.8 percent in 1997 to 44.6 percent this year.
The reason? An explosion of votersan increase of nearly 3 millionwho have elected to register as independents (or what the state calls no party preference). Independents now make up an even 25.0 percent of all California voters. Thats more than double their 11.9 percent share in 1997, and just a hair behind where the GOP stands.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/19/1742517/-New-data-shows-Republicans-on-verge-of-falling-to-third-party-status-in-California
AlexSFCA
(6,139 posts)Kablooie
(18,641 posts)Because I wanted to feel free to just vote for the best candidate no matter what party.
But after several years I found I never wanted the Republican so I became a dem to be able to vote in primaries.
LenaBaby61
(6,977 posts)nocalflea
(1,387 posts)BigmanPigman
(51,630 posts)MSNBC went to his area today with his opponent Janz. The people told MSNBC that they were "fake news" (I guess any station except Fux Ruse is fake). They also "do not know much about what is going on with Russia. Their main concerns are water supplies (lots of agriculture in the area) and immigration. Maybe they are worried that those Mexican murderers and rapists that they hire for $5 an hour will try to hurt them. Janz has been getting a lot of donations but he said he is running on the local issues I mentioned.
SWBTATTReg
(22,166 posts)Rigid party thought or ideology leads to fossilization or paralysis and tends to hold back new ways/thoughts in doing things, until eventually, the new overwhelms the old.
The GOP uses numerous little ways to not deal w/ issues (because they don't know the answers either, and don't want to admit this) and use this 'hot button' issues solely for purposes of retaining power/office.
Numerous hot button issues seem to overwhelm the huge overwhelming issues of the vast majority of us (financial security, shelter, food, jobs). Invented or hypersensitive topics such as gun rights, abortion, voter fraud, etc. probably only truly impacts maybe a tiny percentage of Americans (out of roughly 325 million of us). Issues such as putting food on the table or paying bills by far dominate my dinner table.
If for the GOP a topic takes more than 5 seconds to discuss, then they don't want this as a topic that their candidates will talk about. And when they do get/select a topic, the usual refrain 'Let's calm down etc. and talk about later' is the excuse they come up with. 'Later' never comes.
IronLionZion
(45,534 posts)where many state-wide offices have open primaries. That could be part of why many voters might choose to be registered independent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_14_(2010)
Skittles
(153,193 posts)but I guess that is a good start
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,430 posts)They're slowly getting there.
DonViejo posted an article about a Quinnipiac Poll and the only group GOP was leading was "white men". Across all age groups, people would rather see Democrats in control of House and Senate.
https://poll.qu.edu/images/polling/us/us02202018_ugbw51.pdf/