More Redding voters confirm affiliation with Democratic Party
(UPDATED: Aug. 4, 2008) As excitement builds for this November's general election, Registrar Margi Esten reports an unusually large number of town residents have visited her office at Redding Town Hall to establish or switch their party affiliation to Democratic. In the past 18 months, some 200 names have been added to the local Democratic ranks.
The heaviest traffic in recent months was immediately prior to the presidential primary, held in Connecticut on "Super Tuesday" on Feb. 5. Esten says that determined voters were switching parties as late as the day before the primary in order to be eligible to participate in choosing the party's candidate for the general election (in Connecticut, no-affiliated voters may vote in the November general election, but not in the primary).
Over the past 10 years, the percentage of Redding voters registered as Democrats has grown from 22% to 29%. Simultaneously, Republicans registrations in town have declined from 42% to 34%. [See chart developed by DTC Treasurer Mark Lewis, with data provided by Registrar Esten.]
The total number of registered voters in town grew from 6,401 in November 2006 to 6,536 in mid-April 2008. Over that 18-month period, the number of registered Democrats in Redding grew from 1,675 to 1,872. Meanwhile, the number of Republicans has moved from 2,210 to 2,225. The largest bloc, unaffiliated voters, has winnowed from 2,508 to 2,225. A small number of voters are affilaited with the Green, Libertarian or other parties (nine voters across Redding).
"It's interesting to see that we have exactly the same number of Republican registrants today as we had in 1998, but the Democrats have increased by 65%," observed Rob Dean, a Redding planning commissioner and DTC member. " And this has all happened during the Bush years; in 2000 there were twice as many Republicans as Democrats."