UPDATED to say, Ari made me move this post up.
UPDATED further to say, this chart shows the change in voter registration, by party, for the period shown, for states that have this information available.
| State | R | D | Other | Period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AK | 2,836 | 2,628 | 6,825 | March-September |
| AZ | 32,141 | 68,480 | 4,359 | January-September |
| CA | 46,497 | 417,793 | 117,313 | January-May |
| CO | 13,352 | 66,516 | 23,437 | January-July |
| DE | 676 | 4,428 | 2,200 | July-September |
| FL | 77,196 | 209,422 | 26,100 | January-June |
| IA | 7,515 | 69,301 | -62,922 | January-August |
| KS | 1,553 | 13,159 | -1,704 | January-March |
| MD | 4,260 | 12,338 | 5,544 | January-July |
| NV | 1,230 | 51,547 | 7,550 | January-August |
| NH | -1,285 | 1,188 | 269 | June-August |
| NY | 1,526 | 102,559 | -164 | November-March |
| NC | 20,363 | 171,955 | 123,605 | January-August |
| OR | -13,349 | 122,518 | – | January-July |
| PA | 289 | 98,137 | 15,907 | April-August |
| WY | 1,390 | 3,409 | 5,892 | January-August |
For states with information on partisan affiliation. Via Scott’s post. Scott subtracted older totals from later totals to reach these figures.
See original post for more detail.
The Edge of the American West 
54 comments
September 5, 2008 at 11:29 am
Voter registration data; or, HERE IS YOUR HOPE, YOU FOOLS! « The Edge of the American West
[…] September 4, 2008 in history and current events by SEK UPDATED by Eric to say: See the information in tabular form here. […]
September 5, 2008 at 11:32 am
Tim Lacy
Uh, wow. Holy smokes. – TL
September 5, 2008 at 2:00 pm
John Emerson
Are you trying to cheer us up or something? I smell a rat. (Because I’m a Democrat!)
September 5, 2008 at 2:04 pm
eric
There is no cheer, only data.
September 5, 2008 at 2:11 pm
ari
There is no data, only beer.
September 5, 2008 at 2:13 pm
eric
There is no data, only beer.
That’s it, I’m going down to your office.
September 5, 2008 at 2:14 pm
bw
lucky us on the elitist coast: it’s happy hour.
September 5, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Charlieford
Um, that’s telling us the change over the months specified? But, don’t we also need to know totals? If there were say, 200,000 Republicans already in AZ, but only 100,000 Democrats, that would be important to know.
September 5, 2008 at 2:20 pm
eric
don’t we also need to know totals?
Depends what you want to know. These data give you a basis for thinking about trends.
But to get you closer to where you want to go, Charlie, consider:
September 5, 2008 at 2:21 pm
eric
lucky us on the elitist coast: it’s happy hour.
That’s no help. If I’d moved back to England it would be socially acceptable to be drunk at this hour.
(3 … 2 … 1 …)
September 5, 2008 at 2:29 pm
eric
BTW, if you want straight-up poll analysis that I guess wouldn’t include this effect, your best bet is probably 538.
September 5, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Charlieford
Yes, understood. Those margins of victory also provide helpful context.
September 5, 2008 at 2:50 pm
silbey
Good article on this in the New York Times from last month.
September 5, 2008 at 2:54 pm
eric
Vance has pwned you, silbey.
September 5, 2008 at 2:58 pm
silbey
Vance has pwned you, silbey.
Damnit.
September 5, 2008 at 3:02 pm
bw
That’s no help. If I’d moved back to England it would be socially acceptable to be drunk at this hour.
If you’d taught in the religion department where I went to grad school it would be socially acceptable to be drunk at this hour. Especially if you had an evening seminar coming up.
September 5, 2008 at 4:20 pm
ben
This is change? Like, California grew 400,000 new Democrats?
Goddamn.
September 5, 2008 at 4:25 pm
ari
It’s the long growing season, ben.
September 5, 2008 at 4:26 pm
ari
Which is to say, I think Colorado’s even more impressive.
September 5, 2008 at 4:34 pm
ben
You know, I bet you could get some data for the states not broken down by party affiliation by calling the state party HQs and asking nicely.
September 5, 2008 at 4:39 pm
ben
Not in Washington state, though!
And not in any of the others where it’s not a matter of the information’s not being available in party-by-party form, but of it not existing in that form.
September 5, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Linkmeister
My comment disappeared. Do you moderate them, or did it fail?
Anyway, from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin 5/6/2008 edition, appended to an AP article about voter registration:
“In Hawaii, voter registration jumped more than 16,000 so far this year compared with the last presidential election year of 2004.”
http://starbulletin.com/2008/05/06/news/story03.html
September 5, 2008 at 9:24 pm
urbino
Voting. That’s so 1996.
September 5, 2008 at 10:11 pm
bitchphd
Like, California grew 400,000 new Democrats?
It is my understanding that an acquaintance of Mr. B. headed a massive voter registration drive here in Ventura County, such that for the first time in memory, we are now officially blue.
September 5, 2008 at 10:17 pm
ari
You look a little blue. You should take a few very deep breaths.
September 5, 2008 at 10:29 pm
ben
The NY Times article states that 23 of 26 states which do registration by party had data available at the time the article was written, so the second update isn’t really accurate.
September 5, 2008 at 10:33 pm
eric
I’m sure Scott, and the rest of us, would be delighted if you would go get the data he was unable to find, ben.
September 5, 2008 at 10:41 pm
ben
Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!
September 6, 2008 at 12:17 am
Numbers that might give hope « Babbling Blueberry
[…] Image of table is from Bitch Ph.D. The original table is from a different blog. […]
September 6, 2008 at 1:00 am
Daily Links for September 5th | Akkam's Razor
[…] (via Google Reader)Green Behind The Ears (via Google Reader)shared 11 more items on Google ReaderChanges in Voter Registration (via delicious)Happy Birthday, Google (via Google Reader)Devin Stewart: Ending the Nation-State Myth (via Google […]
September 6, 2008 at 5:26 am
Ben Alpers
This post has now effectively become the top-rated diary over on the Great Orange Satan, for whatever that’s worth!
September 6, 2008 at 6:41 am
eric
My comment disappeared. Do you moderate them, or did it fail?
Sorry about that, but we don’t moderate—sometimes the spam filter picks up comments for no evident reason, and we try to keep on top of that and rescue them, but this time there’s no comment from you there either. I don’t know what happened.
September 6, 2008 at 6:42 am
eric
for whatever that’s worth!
If I don’t get a cupcake out of it, I’m not sure I care.
September 6, 2008 at 6:52 am
ari
Ben, are you asking us to reject and denounce kos?
September 6, 2008 at 7:36 am
Colin
From your lips to the AP’s ears: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iyCjg56QEYy3r8Gz2X09TnpaWOMwD9317JU00
September 6, 2008 at 9:46 am
Matt W
Re that article: I did GOTV in Clairton for Harris Wofford in 1994 (sigh). It was in pretty bad shape. (I just read an article about trying to redevelop “the blighted area around the Millvue Acres housing project,” which I think is where we were.)
September 6, 2008 at 1:02 pm
andrew
The AP article includes this line:
That’s more than the population of the entire US!
September 6, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Todd Smyth
Virginia Adds 49K New Voters in August
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/06/obama_helps_register_49k_new_v.html
The Trail- Virginia Adds 49K New Voters in August
By Alec MacGillis
With time running out on its push to register thousands of new voters in Virginia, the Obama campaign is picking up the pace. State election officials told the campaign Friday that 49,000 new voters signed up in August, a sharp increase from the 36,500 who signed up in July and the 28,000 who registered in June.
The campaign had predicted that its August numbers could lag given the difficulty of reaching residents during vacation season. But the August gain puts the Obama campaign very much on track toward its goal of signing up 150,000 new voters by the early October voter registration deadline, on top of the 142,000 new voters who registered during primary season.
There is no way of knowing how many of the newly registered will vote for Obama, especially since Virginia does not record voters by party affiliation. But the campaign is encouraged by the demographic profile of the new voters — about 40 percent of those who registered in August are aged 25 or under.
The campaign predicts that if it can add 150,000 new registrations before early October, it will net about 60,000 votes out of that in November, assuming that 80 percent of the new voters are for Obama and that they turn out at a rate of 75 percent. Those votes could add up to about 1.75 percent of the anticipated state vote — not enough to make up for the eight-point edge George Bush had in 2004, but possibly enough to tip the state Obama’s way if he can also make gains with existing voters.
Nationally, more than 2 million Democrats have been added to the rolls in the 28 states that register voters according to party affiliation, according to the Associated Press. Republicans have lost nearly 344,000 thousand voters in the same states during the same period.
September 6, 2008 at 5:28 pm
The Traveling Filipina
I am so glad I live in California. I’m so proud of my state right now. *sniff* < tears of joy.
September 6, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Charlieford
Here’s some other geeky, number-crunching things I’d like to know:
1) how do Obama’s votes of “present” stack up against other legislators in the Illinois senate?
2) how does Obama’s record as a Jr. Senator from Illinois compare with that of other Jr. Senators?
3) how do Obama’s first 4 years as Jr. Senator compare with John McCain’s first four years as a senator?
I await the satisfaction of these curiosities, as they surely will soon come wafting my way on someone’s swift cyber-wings . . .
September 7, 2008 at 9:47 am
micah
This *sounds* like awfully good news, but the pessimist in me worries that it’s just because of people switching registrations to vote in competitive primaries. (Admittedly the time-frame doesn’t work out right for all the states you have listed, but it does for a lot of them…)
September 7, 2008 at 3:16 pm
MICHAEL BROOKES
I was a republican I am now going to regisiter next week as a democrat since mitt romney wasn’t choosen as vp.
Obama08
Ohio
September 7, 2008 at 3:18 pm
ari
We heart you, Michael. Bring lots of other voters to the polls with you. And let us know what sort of signing bonus you’re hoping for.
September 7, 2008 at 3:55 pm
bitchphd
because of people switching registrations to vote in competitive primaries.
Not *that* many, it isn’t.
September 7, 2008 at 7:12 pm
micah
Alternately, marginal Democrats might register for the primaries when the corresponding Republicans wait until the generals. I’m just saying, the difference in competitiveness could easily have affected these numbers in ways that won’t be directly reflected in November votes.
That said, a decent number of those states also have more independent than Republican registration, which argues in favor of the optimistic interpretation. (The most dramatic exception is Iowa, but given the timing of the Iowa caucuses those numbers are encouraging too.)
September 7, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
I’m with Dr. B on registration-switching not being that common. What worries me is that a lot of these registration numbers might already be factored into the national polling. If a big chunk of the new registrants are young folks who just turned 18, they should be in our polling data.
September 7, 2008 at 10:52 pm
bitchphd
You think? I would think that the polling data, especially since it relies on *likely* voters, would tend to draw on people who have voted in the past.
September 7, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
Well, the Gallup tracking poll is still running on RV’s, though the main Gallup poll is using LVs.
September 8, 2008 at 12:34 am
Ben Alpers
It’s worth noting that a large number of states appear to be purging their voter roles. So these numbers may be misleadingly optimistic.
September 8, 2008 at 12:35 am
Ben Alpers
er….voter rolls.
I’m sure the voter roles will remain largely unchanged….
September 8, 2008 at 2:38 am
Democrats Voter Registration Gains–hints At What’s To Come | Politics - Sharpy News
[…] the Edfge of the American West, there’s a post with voter registration figures for this year, for 16 states that register people by party, which accounts for about 2/3 of that […]
September 8, 2008 at 3:32 am
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
I don’t know what to make of voter roll purges. You’re supposed to do them once in a while to get dead people off the lists. The question is whether something more vicious will be going on.
September 8, 2008 at 6:54 am
kid bitzer
what could be more vicious than the disenfranchisement of the dead?
September 8, 2008 at 8:35 am
Ben Alpers
I think the concern is the timing of the purges, which might make it difficult for people to discover that they’ve been purged and to reregister in time for the election.