Partisan Voter Registration in Arizona has been roughly divided into thirds for a very long time. Recently, Unaffiliated has become our most popular “party”. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia register voters with party affiliation. Arizona, is one.
Ohio does things a bit differently. It is a state that registers voters without a party designation, but then it identifies the voter as registered with a party if some conditions exist.
Under Ohio law, a voter affiliates for voter registration purposes
with a political party by voting in that party’s primary election.
A voter is a member of a political party if:
(1) they voted in that party’s primary election
within the preceding two calendar years,
or
(2) they did not vote in any other party’s primary election
within the preceding two calendar years.
Under these rules, the most recent data shows Registered Democrats at 11.9% and Registered Republicans at 10.5% in Ohio.
What does that mean for Candidates and activists pursuing votes? It means they are far more reliant on data and demographics and much less dependent on the capital letter party designation after the voter’s name.
A few weeks ago, Ohio stopped a MAGA attempt to reduce voting rights. Issue 1. They did it by pursuing more than just Democrats. They had to.
Pew Research shows the partisanship of the two states as not too different:
Ohio taught us all a lesson on August 8, 2023. Let’s Be Like Ohio.
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