On July 15, the Kentucky State Board of Elections released new registration data, which it does every month. For the first time, there are more registered Republicans than Democrats. Here is a link to the totals. There are 1,612,060 Republicans, and 1,609,569 Democrats.
The percentages are: Republican 45.19%; Democratic 45.12%; Libertarian .42%; Green .06%; Constitution .03%; Socialist Workers .01%; Reform .004%; independent and other 9.16%.
On October 10, 2020, the percentages were: Democratic 46.91%; Republican 44.00%; Libertarian .38%; Green .05%; Constitution .03%; Socialist Workers .01%; Reform .004%; independent and other 8.63%.
I bet a lot of the Democrats in Kentucky were old school Democrats who are turned off by the far left turn that the Democratic Party has taken in recent years, and are switching to Republican or independent.
I know someone involved in politics is Kentucky. He said the state keeps stats on changes in voter registration amongst the parties. So one can find out how many voters switched from Dem to Rep or Dem to Ind, Ind to Rep, etc.
How many States have public party regis PURGE lists ???
A lot of it appears to be Democrats are substantially older, and are dying off faster than they gain new registrants. In rural areas one might register D in order to vote in the primary for sheriff or other local offices. They could still vote R in the general election. They might continue as a D since Kentucky Democrats aren’t so crazy.
There were more R than D voters in the 2020 general election. This indicates that D’s are generally less active.
A curiosity is that registration for L, G, C, Reform, and SW increase month after month. This typically happens when registration forms provide these as choices. But the paper form only gives choices of D, R, and Other with a write-in line. This suggests online registration does present a more complete list.
Jim, there were more registered Democrats than registered Republicans in Kentucky in the general election of 2020. For October 10, 2020 it was 1,672,380 Democrats and 1,568,690 Republicans. For November 16, 2020 it was 1,672,388 Democrats and 1,571,630 Republicans. For December 15, 2020, it was 1,670,574 Democrats and 1,578,612 Republicans.
@RW,
The Kentucky Secretary of State also publishes turnout by party. In the November 2020 general election, more Republicans voted than Democrats voted. This is because turn out by Republicans was a bit higher than it was for Democrats.
In 2020, turnout for R’s was 64.4%, for D’s 59.4%, and for others 45.0%.
In a sense, ‘I’ stands for indifferent rather than independent.
Glad to see the increase in registered Libertarians in Kentucky.
George – yes. Libertarians were 2,615 and 0.09% in 2012. Now 15,075 and 0.42%. But, buy either the 12,460 increase in registrations, or the 0.34% increase in percentage, Kentucky is just mid-tier vs the other state LPs.
How does the share of registered Libertarians in Kentucky compare to other states? I count 32 states and the District of Columbia that have partisan voter registration. According to records I keep, here are how other states stack up in percentages of registered Libertarians:
States with registered Libertarians more than 1% of the total:
Alaska, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah
States with registered Libertarians between .9% and 1%:
Nevada and Wyoming
States with registered Libertarians between .75% and .9%
Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia
States with registered Libertarians between .5% and .75%
Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Oregon
States with registered Libertarians between .4% and .5%:
District of Columbia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, and South Dakota
States with registered Libertarians lower than .4%:
Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island
It might be interesting to see this broken down by county, or that is geographically. From what I dimly recall, the eastern half of the state was D,and the western half was R, or vice versa, so all of the action was at the primary, with most counties having one-party rule. This might help explain the low number of registered independents. My guess is that Trump re-aligned who identifies as GOP.
Eastern Kentucky was Republican, now Western Kentucky is too.