California Democrats Widen Registration Edge Over Republicans, But Big Gain is in Decline-to-State Voters

By Frank D. Russo

The California Secretary of State has just issued the last report of voter registration figures before the 2008 Presidential Primary Election. They show that Democrats are 43% of registered voters in California, up from 42.6% just before the 2006 Gubernatorial primary and just below the 43.2% who were registered Democrats at the time of the last Presidential Primary in June of 2004. Republicans have dropped from 35.6% in 2004 to 34.4% in 2006 and are now down to 33.3% of all registrants. Democrats now have a 10 point edge over Republicans.

However, the biggest gain in the last four years has been in the Decline-to-state voters—those who are not affiliated with any party who rose in the last 4 years from 16.4% to 19.4% of all voters. These DTS voters have been on a steady increase since 1992 when they accounted for 9.7% of all registrants.

Other parties account for a combined 4.3% of registered voters, with the American Independent Party at 2.1%, the Green Party at .8%, Libertarians at .5% and Peace and Freedom voters at .4%.

Since the last Presidential Primary Report in 2004, the total number of registered voters in the state has increased from 15,091,160 to 15,712,753, but the percentage of these voters compared with those who are eligible has declined from 68.95% to 68.47%.

Democratic registration increased three tenths of a point since December 7, 2007, the last report and Republican registration declined by three tenths of a percent during this seven week period.

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