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Some Republicans across the country are changing their party registrations after the uprising on Capitol Hill on January 6.
In Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Florida – states that made some of their data publicly available – voters were quitting the Republican Party.
“It’s definitely a trend and we noticed it right after – the 8th or the 9th – right after the uprising of the 6th,” Consuelo Kelly, communications director of the county election supervisor, told ABC News on Saturday. by Broward, to ABC News. Florida.
The numbers are tiny in the grand scheme of things – a few thousand voters here and there don’t make much of a dent in the Republican Party’s constituency nationwide. And some Democrats have changed their party membership as well, but at a slower pace. But the first figures raise eyebrows.
Dr Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who studies voting and elections, told ABC News that this kind of change right after a federal election is out of the ordinary.
“It is very unusual for people to change or change party registration without any incentive to do so,” he said.
“The typical reason people change their registration is because there is a primary approach and the primary is in a party registration state, where you have to be registered with a party or as an independent. So before an election you will see people re-registering in order to participate in the primary in states that have party registration, ”McDonald added.“ This is not a typical activity for the people of. call it up and say, “I want to be registered as a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or non-partisan.” It’s a very unusual thing that’s happening and from the reports we get from election officials – it seems like it is one thing. “
In North Carolina, just over 6,000 Republicans changed their registration to unaffiliated from Jan.6 to Jan.19, with about 3,600 of the state’s nearly 9 million registered voters making the switch the week after the riot. on Capitol Hill, according to data from the National Council of Elections. About 530 former Republicans changed their affiliation to Democrats and about 1,730 Democrats changed or withdrawn their party affiliation. About 510 of these former Democrats have moved on to the Republican Party, while about 1,210 have withdrawn their party affiliation.
Throughout the month of December, as Congressional Republicans continued to attempt to overturn election results to prevent President Joe Biden from taking office, just over 1,900 Republicans changed their registration to unaffiliated and about 2,000 Democrats did the same.
After the 2016 election, the number of Republicans in North Carolina who changed affiliation within the same time frame was just under 450.
In Arizona, a state that has steadily turned bluer in recent election cycles, about 7,500 voters have transferred their GOP registrations to other parties or unaffiliated since Jan.6, according to data provided to ABC News by the Office of the Secretary of State. Thursday. Of these, about 5,300 of the more than 1.5 million Republicans registered in the state have deregistered a designated party.
President Joe Biden won Arizona by about 10,000 votes, but in the two months after the election and before the insurgency, only about 4,500 Republicans changed registration.
Among Democrats, just over 1,600 voters have changed or withdrawn their party registration since Jan.6. Arizona did not track this data after the 2016 election, according to Solis. Like many other states, the office does not explicitly track this data.
Dr Michael Hanmer, professor of voting and participation at the University of Maryland, told ABC News that most of the changes appear to be focused among Republicans.
“The imbalance is something I think is interesting to think about, given that it is proven right now, it mainly appears that Republicans are reacting to the events of January 6,” Hanmer said. “But, in the future, I think there was already this trend in place that people were unhappy with both sides to a large extent. And so that could speed that up,” he said of the comment. of the attack on the US Capitol.
Some populated areas of Florida are showing similar signs.
In Miami-Dade, the state’s largest county and home to a key group of Latino voters, about 1,600 Republicans have changed their party membership since Jan. 6, about 1,120 of those who have removed their affiliation with a party and 330 of them went to independents, according to data provided by the county election office on Friday. Among Democrats, the total number of changes was just under 450 – around 280 of them withdrawing party affiliation. At the same time in 2016, around 300 Republicans changed their registration during the month of January, and around 500 Democrats did the same.
From November 4 to January 6, about 630 Republicans in the county left the party, while nearly 300 changed their registration to Democrats. In the same time frame, around 950 Democrats left the party, while around 670 became Republicans and 120 became independents.
This trend is also visible in Broward County, where nearly 1,720 Republicans have changed affiliation and most of them – 1,108 – have decided not to be party affiliates. There were just over 350 who moved to independent status and about 250 moved to the Democratic Party. Democrats had about 660 changes in the same time frame, with more than 430 moving to no party affiliation and 145 joining the Republican Party. Democrats also won voters who were not affiliated with the party, with more than 280 of the 584 changes turning blue and around 180 joining the GOP.
The Florida Department of Elections could not provide further details on statewide trends among the state’s more than 14.5 million voters.
In Pennsylvania, the secretary of state does not track those numbers right after a major election, according to a spokesperson. But surveys from some Associated Press counties show the same trend at this level. In Cumberland County, the AP reported earlier this month that 192 people had changed their party registration since the January 6 riot. Only 13 made it to the GOP – the other 179 went on to become Democrats, Independents, or Third Parties. The numbers are tiny compared to the 3.5 million Republicans registered in Pennsylvania.
An ABC News / Washington Post poll, conducted Jan. 10-13, found that 69% of Americans, by far, said Republican officials should be leading the party in a different direction rather than following Trump’s leadership. But just among Republicans, 60% want to continue following Trump – less than in the past, but still marking the risk of a Trump / no Trump schism within the party. A similar question asked in 2018 found that 83% of Republicans at the time felt the same.
A recent Quinnipiac poll found similar results: 77% say they would like to see the Republican Party leave Trump once he steps down, including 53% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.
McDonald said he suspected more changes were on the way, although the events of the past few weeks may just be a failure in terms of a registration change.
“This is probably the tip of the iceberg among Republicans as other people may be upset by what is going on but they are not yet willing to take the time to change the party’s registration,” a- he declared. “Based on the great arc of the story, we think that’s probably what’s going to happen here, is that it’s only temporary. Once the fever has subsided, we’ll go back to business as usual. It is a perspective that I take on myself. The other perspective is that it’s something that’s more long term – sustainable – than what we’re seeing here is more of a realignment. “
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