Oregon Voters Rejecting Political Parties

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Shelby Sebens, GoLocalPDX Reporter

A growing number of Oregon voters don’t want to affiliate with Republicans or Democrats, or any other political party.

Unaffiliated voters make up the third highest registration in the state, but they are not far behind Democrats and Republicans.

And in several large counties this election cycle, the numbers of registered unaffiliated voters went up while those choosing to register as Democrat or Republican went down, according to an analysis of state voter registration numbers by Political Director, DHM Research and Director of the Early Voting Information Center Paul Gronke.

“It is alarming to the Republican Party, and probably the two major parties, that there is a feeling in people registering to vote that they’re moving to non affiliated as opposed to supporting the party structures,” Oregon Republican Party Executive Director Margie Hughes said.

While Democrats still lead in overall voter registration, with 831,432 and Republicans in second with 656,794, unaffiliated voters are creeping up at 532,420.

"In the long term what it means is people are interested in politics but the political parties are not what they’re interested in," Political Science Professor at Pacific University Jim Moore said.

Voter registration numbers overall are the highest they have been for a midterm election since at least 1998 and are nearly as high as the 2012 presidential election. Voter registration was 2,193,295 this election compared to 2,068,798 in 2010, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's Elections Division.

In the state’s largest county, Multnomah County, unaffiliated registration went up 10 percent from 2012 to 2014, according to numbers compiled by Gronke. But registration decreased by just over 7 percent for Republicans and just over 4 percent for Democrats.

The state’s second largest county, Washington, saw an increase in unaffiliated voter registration of over 9 percent while Republicans went down 5.5 percent and Democrats went down just over 4 percent. Deschutes County saw the largest uptick in unaffiliated voters from 2012 to 2014 at 12 percent. Democrats and Republicans saw a slight increase, both less than 1 percent.

Jackson, Yamhill, Marion, Polk, Linn and Benton Counties also saw signficant increases in registered unaffiliated voters, of at least 9 percent.

Hughes said it’s been trending this way for a while. She said in the 1990s, she remembers when unaffiliated voters accounted for about 80,000 Oregonians.

“Now they’re pushing the registration levels of the Democrats and the Republicans,” she said.

Moore said political experts have been tracking it for years..

"It’s a national trend," he said. "It’s a little more pronounced in the west because we have had weaker political parties."

But, Moore added, the increased voter registrations likely won't translate to votes. He said as of Monday, unaffiliated voters had the lowest percentage of ballots returned. Moore also said of the new registrations in Oregon, 70 percent are unaffiliated voters.

But Hughes said it’s definitely on the minds of Republicans.

“For the growth of the party we of course need to convince those citizens, those voters who are registering non affiliate to consider joining the Republican Party, however, it is just as important for our republican candidates to get the message out,” Hughes said. “When it comes time for the election, it’s more important that we convince the non affiliates to vote with us than to have them in the party.”