November 7,2016
The Winner In A Wipe Out…….. No Party
Tulare County now has 154,003 registered voters, a record number as of November 1, 2016. Four years ago in November 2012, the last presidential election, the county had 145,348 voters.
So we have an additional 8655 residents eligible to vote.
Of the totals – 50,544 are listed as Democrats, 65,262 are Republican and 31,133 list No Party Preference (NNP). Among the minor parties 4918 are American Independents and 1129 are listed as Libertarian. The remainder parties in the county number in the few hundreds.
How does the trend compare to 2012? Back then,Tulare County had 49,151 Democrats, 63,809 Republicans and 25,599 NPP.
So in those four years Demos grew by 1393, GOP voters increased by 1453 and that No Party Preference group surged by 5534. Looked at another way of the 8655 additional voters – 5534 said they did not identify with any party. Almost two-thirds of them!
That’s a wipe out by any election measure.
The same thing has been happening in neighbor Kings County where from 2012 to 2016 there were more new NNPs registered compared to new Demos and Republicans combined. Also statewide. In the latest California registration figures (November 1) more people are aligning themselves with no party. The state says about one quarter of all voters are now NNP.
-The percentage of voters who have no party preference increased from 20.9% to 24.3%.
-The percentage of voters registered with a qualified political party decreased from 77.2% to 75.1%.
-The percentage of voters registered with the Democratic Party increased from 43.7% to 44.9%.
Tulare County’s non-affiliated voter numbers have grown from around 10,000 in the mid-1990s to over 30,000 today even as both major political parties are up or down by just a few thousand. Demos held a plurality in the county until 1996 and the GOP has ruled since.
Now more are deserting both parties.