Voter registration numbers
We at Swing Left don’t get thrown by the doom and gloom over primaries and polls. We’re focused on the general election, tied up with actions that will make a difference—raising funds, recruiting volunteers, canvassing, registering voters. Because most of what we do flies under the radar, I was thrilled to discover the Twitter account of Tom Bonier (@tbonier), who posts terrific stats showing how voter registration has changed the electorate in key states.
So far, he’s posted about Texas, Maine, Arizona, North Carolina Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, and Florida. (I’ll update here as Bonier does.) Each stat is energizing in a different way.
You might want to share this info with your hand-wringing Democratic friends. And then, maybe convince them to join us in registering voters. ‘Cause these are great numbers!
Texas
February Your random election data stat of the day: over 1 million Texans under the age of 25 have registered vote since Election Day, 2016. Half of them are people of color, 36% are Hispanic.
As a result, the registered electorate in Texas, overall, is now 37.2% people of color, as compared to 35.4% on Election Day 2016.
Maine
January Your random election data stat of the day: In Maine, where Susan Collins faces a strong challenge, among people who registered since Nov ’16, Dems hold a 17% advantage. Among those registered before Nov ’16, that advantage shrinks to 5% suggesting an anti-GOP surge under Trump.
Arizona
January The electorate in Arizona will only continue to grow more diverse – among registered voters in the state under age 25, 30% are Hispanic, and 40% in total are people of color.
The eligible electorate in Arizona in ’20 will be significantly more diverse than it was in 2016. Latinos account for 15.8% of those who registered to vote prior to the ’16 election, but make up 20% of the 712,673 new registrants since that day. That’s 142,741 new Latino voters.
The new Arizona electorate heading into the 2020 elections is younger as well. 230,568 of the 712,673 people who registered to vote since the 2016 election are under the age of 25. That’s almost a third of all new registrants.
Among Arizonans who registered to vote at any point before the 2016 election, Republicans have a 4.3% advantage. Among the 712,673 who have registered since that day, Democrats have a 1.8% advantage.
Your random election data stat thread of the day: Arizona has seen 712,673 people register to vote since Donald Trump carried the state by 91,234 votes in 2016 (the worst performance by a GOP presidential candidate in the state since Bob Dole in 1996).
North Carolina
January Your random election data stat thread of the day: 1,013,351 people have registered to vote in NC since Donald Trump carried the state in 2016, creating a massive surge of younger, more diverse voters into the electorate ahead of the 2020 elections.
Among voters on the file in NC who registered to vote at some point before the 2016 election, 70.9% are white. Among those registered since that day, 64.8% are white. Hispanic voters account for only 2.4% of pre-’16 registrants and an incredible 6.8% of new registrants.
From a partisan perspective, the new registrants in NC are far less likely to register with either party – 44.5% are unaffiliated, while 29.6% registered as a Democrat. But these unaffiliated voters skew young (61% under the age of 35) and are likely to favor Democrats.
Michigan
January Your random election data stat thread of the day: 957,284 people have registered to vote in Michigan since the day Donald Trump carried the state by just over 10,000 votes, making the electorate younger and more diverse than it was on that day.
Perhaps the most impressive surge in registration in Michigan since ’16 has come among 18-24 year olds, where we’ve seen 284,606 new registrants. 19.3% are people of color.
Among voters registered in Michigan before election day, 2016, 15% are people of color, as compared to 18.2% of those registered since that day.
Of those 957,284 new registrants in Michigan since the 2016 election, 555,166, or 58% are under the age of 35.
Pennsylvania
January Your random election data stat of the day (and a reminder that representation matters): 50% of registered Republicans in Pennsylvania are white men, as compared to 32% of registered Democrats in the state.
Nevada
January Your random election data stat of the day: In Nevada, among voters registered before the 2016 election, Dems have a 5% advantage over GOPs. But among the 361,981 people who registered since that day, Dems have a 7% advantage.
Georgia
February Your random election data stat of the day: 34% of those Georgians currently registered to vote who cast a ballot in ’16 are people of color. Compare that to 49% of the 2.94 million Georgians currently registered to vote who did not vote in ’16. Engagement matters.
January Your random election data stat of the day: A majority of the 510,673 voters under the age of 25 who have registered to vote in Florida since the Nov 2016 election are people of color.
An updated random election data stat of the day: there are now 465,199 black people registered to vote in Georgia who were not registered on electon day 2016.
Florida
November Your random election data stat of the day: there are 890,496 Millennial and Gen Z registered voters in Florida who were not on the voter rolls in 2016 when Trump carried the state by 112,911 votes.