Friday, February 21, 2014

California Registration Report

The California 154 day registration report is out, the first report in nearly a year. This is the first of five registration reports. The first report of the year usually shows a drop in registration. During odd numbered years parties aren't out registering people and registrars are deleting registrations of those who've moved, died, or have become inactive. This year's registration report shows a drop of 395,000 registered voters. Democrats lost 236,000, Republicans lost 152,000 and NPP/other parties lost 7,000 voters. That sounds good for the GOP, but there's no way to know how many of these people were active voters who moved or died and how many new voters are among them. It's likely that few of these people voted in 2012. So losing them isn't a loss for either party.

I'll give you the biggest changes, even if they don't mean much.

CA-36 goes from D+0.4% to R+2.1%. This is a big change. They dropped 8,730 Democrats and only 1,629 Republicans. This might not help the GOP but it surely means that Democrats aren't gaining ground.

CA-10 goes from D+0.8% to R+1.0%. The second district where registration goes from a Democratic advantage to a Republican one. Democrats lost 11% of their registered voters. Jeff Denham won in 2012 when Democrats had a registration advantage. I don't think anyone should doubt that he's safe and this district should move off competitive lists.

CA-16 goes from D+15.9% to D+15.1%. This district has a lot of Democratic non-voters and many who vote Republican. I'm not sure eliminating a bunch of Democrats changes the competitiveness.

CA-21 goes from D+14.8% to D+14.1%. This is David Valadao's district. I don't see Democrats mounting much of a challenge in 2014.

CA-26 goes from D+5.4% to D+5.9%. That certainly doesn't help if Republicans want to retake the district.

CA-9 goes from D+12.4% to D+12.8%. Democrats had a big jump in registration before the 2012 election, so it's surprising to see a bigger Republican purge than Democratic purge.

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