Yesterday, we looked at the dramatic voter registration shift in Nevada, where Democrats have added far more voters to the rolls than Republicans in all three of the state’s congressional districts over the past two years. It occurred to me that we might want to expand this analysis to as many “swing states” as we could.
SEK over at The Edge of the American West has done yeoman’s work on this score, keeping tabs on the Democratic gains since the beginning of the year in all states with available data on party registration. Let’s take that approach a step further and compare the voter registration changes between today and 2006.
Nearly five years ago, DavidNYC defined a swing state as any state where the vote margin between both sides was ±10%. Let’s take David’s 2004 list of swing states (and add North Carolina and Arizona, for good measure) and see just how much movement there has been in voter registration in these states since November 2006. Unfortunately, not all of these states have voter registration, or publicly available data covering the last two years, so our list is much shorter than I’d like. But you blog with the stats you have, not the stats you want.
Just as we did yesterday, let’s present the data in terms of the margin of each party’s voter registration advantage in their respective states, with blue indicating a Democratic registration advantage and red indicating a GOP advantage.
| State | 2006 | 2008 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | 166,133 | 110,806 | 55,327 |
| California | 1,291,594 | 1,809,466 | 517,872 |
| Colorado | 165,423 | 78,227 | 87,196 |
| Delaware | 67,494 | 86,573 | 19,079 |
| Florida | 283,856 | 465,617 | 181,761 |
| Iowa | 18,195 | 99,014 | 80,819 |
| Nevada | 15,309 | 76,053 | 60,744 |
| New Jersey | 260,066 | 652,210 | 392,144 |
| North Carolina | 611,790 | 743,463 | 131,673 |
| Oregon | 62,351 | 212,224 | 149,873 |
| Pennsylvania | 599,791 | 1,111,900 | 512,109 |
No doubt a super-charged presidential primary was a big factor in the hard blue turn in many of these states, but that contest only fanned the flames of an already present (and continuing) trend. These are definitely some numbers worth chewing on — and definitely ones causing heartburn for GOP strategists.
I’ve included links to my sources below the fold.
Update: I’ve revised the chart above to include inactive voters in the tallies for Arizona and Nevada, as well as update the Iowa numbers with the new September stats (Dems posted another net gain of 2,500 voters here).
AZ: 2006 | 2008
CA: 2006 | 2008
CO: 2006 | 2008
DE: 2006 | 2008
FL: 2006 | 2008
IA: 2006 | 2008
NV: 2006 | 2008
NJ: 2006 | 2008
NC: 2006 | 2008
OR: 2006 | 2008
PA: 2006 | 2008
Bush carried it by about 380,000 in 2004 so this would theoretically cut that deficit by almost half. Make no mistake it will be tough for Obama but if there is one state that shocks people on election night it could be here.
That table is more beautiful than the diamonds and pearls that Cindy wore the other night.
Iowa and Nevada are the finest gems in the crown. Bush carried NV by less than 22,000 votes in ’04, and he carried Iowa by less than half that figure. The way I’m counting unhatched electoral votes this year is simple: the Kerry states plus Iowa and New Mexico, plus either Nevada and Montana/North Dakota, or Ohio, or Virginia to win, and then others to make a landslide. Meanwhile we have a good shot at picking up two House seats in NV and another good opportunity emerging in IA, and these figures make those chances look better.
Another half a million registered Democrats in Pennsylvania! That’s enough to swamp that patch of Alabama voters in the middle. John Kerry took Teresa Heinz Kerry’s state by almost 150,000. If Obama gets a half million more votes that will be so sweet. We’re also looking to pick up a couple of House seats with this kind of margin.
And North Carolina looks very pretty. More than 130,000 new Dems. They didn’t register that way intending to vote for McSame-Palin. That’s about one third of the Bush margin in ’04 right there.
Florida has a fine sparkle. Almost 200,000 more Dems without even a primary to fuel an effort sign them up. If they are in the right places — and the bits I’ve seen are encouraging — these new voters could send the Cuban mafia packing and help us pick up half a dozen House seats. And just maybe deliver the state’s EVs. After all, that’s about 200,000 times the margin by which Bush stole Florida in 2000, and it cuts his ’04 margin in half.
In Oregon, it’s figures like these that can make a Repub incumbent Senator try to pose as an ally of Obama. But anyone smart enough to register Democratic in Oregon is too smart to vote Repub this year.
And half a million more Dems in Cali. Maybe the Governator should switch his registration to his wife’s party if he wants to run for Senator next time.
Colorado is a bit less sparkling that I’d expected to see. Having won a Senate seat and a Governor’s race, one or two House seats, and control of the Lege in the past few years, I thought we’d see even more momentum in the party registration. We gained and cut their lead by more than half, but the Repubs still lead by almost 80,000, maybe 70,000 by the time registration closes. No wonder the polling there is not as strong as Iowa. I really want to see us grab the square state’s electoral votes and take another House seat by dispatching that homophobe.
These numbers will be the jewels in the crown of victory in November.
The Iowa numbers for Sept 08 are now out. Dem registration advantage has increased to 99,014 from 96,420. Another month, another ~2.5k.
Excellent work as always.
Looking at their site, there are a lot of states where the trends are amazing: Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and others. Nevada is incredible, and so vitally important for the future as the state looks to only get bigger and bigger. This is why the two congressional races there in November are noteworthy. Even in Wyoming, well over twice as many Dems as Repubs registered.
Right now, pay close attention to the generic congressional ballot polls we get from time to time. They have shown good news for Democrats all year, and with these numbers, it is not hard to see why.
A poll from a couple weeks ago caught my eye. Democracy Corps polled in a dozen west districts: AZ-01/03/05/08, MT-AL, NV-02/03, WY-AL, CO-04, ID-01, and NM-01/02. It found a generic Republican leading a generic Democrat by only 47-45. Keep in mind that together these districts average R+8. To be so close portends good things.
http://www.democracycorps.com/…
I think that would be a better indication of how things are moving.
Some states listed show only Active voters, others show both Active + Inactive voters. I suggest we use the Total (Active + Inactive) as the standard metric. In this case, Democratic Advantage increases in Nevada to 76,053 from 61,705 (8/08), GOP Advantage increases in Arizona to 110,806 from 103,696 (9/08).
In addition, New Mexico and New Hampshire are two additional states that publish voter registration information by party and would both be great additions to this table which hopefully will find its way into the Resource column of Swing State Project.
on a Presidential level.
Kentucky, West Virginia, and North Carolina are three good examples of why. You could even include Florida, which I believe has also always had a Democratic registration advantage.
Indiana does not register by party but has gained 500,000 voters this year….200,000 of those since the primary. yesterday an organization called that had 15,000 new ones that they are bringing in next week. Too bad we cant tell by party but we know that the Obama campaign has been bringing in thousands daily and has registrars everywhere especially in heavily Dem areas. Indiana is definitely in play for Obama this year.
Indiana does not register by party but has gained 500,000 voters this year….200,000 of those since the primary. yesterday an organization called that had 15,000 new ones that they are bringing in next week. Too bad we cant tell by party but we know that the Obama campaign has been bringing in thousands daily and has registrars everywhere especially in heavily Dem areas. Indiana is definitely in play for Obama this year.
such as Pennsylvania and primarily suburban Philly, much of the gain has been among Republican-Independents who voted for candidates like Casey, Rendell, Kerry, Clinton and Specter, and while knowing that the Republican has left them, they’ve finally made the complete conversion over to the Democratic side.
So I wouldn’t necessarily say “+100,000 new Democrats in Pennsylvania = +100,000 new votes”. Not quite. Good news nonetheless.
WashPo is reporting Obama has registered 49,000 new voters in Virginia during the month of August.
http://voices.washingtonpost.c…
Life’s grand, ain’t it?
that have been registered recently, you’d add another column to your chart with a start date of May 10, 2008. That was the NC and IN primaries which effectively signaled the end of the primary. Some of those Dem voters registering before that (especially in places like PA) still may not be full-fledged partisan democrats but instead registered Dem just to vote for Hillary.
But all registrations since then should show true Dem voters that will almost certainly (but still not quite 100%) vote for Obama.
New York stats are IIRC semi-annual. The last data is from March 2008. Compared to November 2006, NY Democrats have gaines a net 115,012 enrollments going from a lead of 2,377,806 to 2,492,818. Long Island traditionally has a Republican enrollment edge but 4 of 5 US House members and both County Execs are Democrats. Staten Island has the reverse with Democrats enjoying the enrollment edge and Republicans electing the House member (the borough leader is a Conservative).
NH lists just 2008 data. It really is a swing stae with the GOP holding an edge of under 5,000. Maine data is only from 2006 with Democrats holding a 309,000 to 279,000 edge.
The article doesn’t state that Obama registered 49K voters in August — it just says that 49K new voters were registered statewide. At least some of those are bound to be Johnny Mac voters. But this line is encouraging: