California Registration Numbers Since 1990

I checked the California Secretary of State’s site and found that each statement of vote has registration statistics going back to 1910. I decided to use the presidential elections from 1988 on, since 1992 marked the realignment in California, Illinois, and many northeastern states that caused them to vote Democratic in every presidential election from 1992 on. Here are the numbers.

Year	DEM	%	GOP	%	Other	%
1988	7,052,368	50.36%	5,406,127	38.60%	1,546,378	11.04%
1992	7,410,914	49.07%	5,593,555	37.04%	2,097,004	13.89%
1996	7,387,504	47.17%	5,704,536	36.42%	2,570,035	16.41%
2000	7,134,601	45.42%	5,485,492	34.92%	3,087,214	19.65%
2004	7,120,425	43.00%	5,745,518	34.70%	3,691,330	22.29%
2008	7,683,495	44.40%	5,428,052	31.37%	4,192,544	24.23%

The 2008 election marked the end of a streak of decreasing numbers of Democratic registered voters since the bump they got in 1992. Why the Democrats’ share of the pie in 1992 fell from their 1988 numbers can be explained by the surge in unaffiliated voters, methinks, thanks to Ross Perot. Also, despite the fall in the Democrats’ numbers in proportion to the total number of registered voters, the Democratic presidential nominee has won California by stronger margins. This can be accounted for by many unaffiliated voters becoming disenchanted with the GOP’s rightward shift and voting Democratic in greater numbers, as well as more Republicans crossing over than Democrats. You will also notice that the GOP’s share of the pie has been steadily declining since 1988, with the boost they got from Arnold and the 2004 election only temporarily stopping the bleeding.

Here are the rates of change in the numbers of each parties’ registered voters. For 1992, I am showing the percent change in the numbers from 1988.

Year	DEM	GOP	Other
1992	5.08%	3.47%	35.61%
1996	-0.32%	1.98%	22.56%
2000	-3.42%	-3.84%	20.12%
2004	-0.20%	4.74%	19.57%
2008	14.20%	-5.53%	13.58%

From here, we can see that the only times since 1988 that the Republicans surpassed Democrats in the rate of increase in the number of registered voters were 1996, where Republican optimism got a jumpstart from their 1994 landslides, and 2004, and in 2008 the rate of increase in the number of registered Democrats surpassed the rate of increase in the number of unaffiliated voters for the first time in a while. (I’m not sure of the last time this happened; I’d have to look it up.) It remains to see if 2008 was a one-time deal, or if we’ll be looking at similar numbers in 2012, with a faster increase in the number of registered Democrats than unaffiliated voters. Unaffiliated voters outnumbering Republican voters is not out of the question either, at least if current trends continue or speed up.