Based on research by the LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 7,800 Louisiana voters have left the Republican Party since the January 6th mob attack on the US Capitol. LSU Political Science Professor Robert Hogan said this tracks with nationwide stats that show roughly 100,000 Republicans have unregistered from the party since then.
“There has been growing dissatisfaction with the Republican Party that has been observed in nationwide polls, so it is not too surprising that you see people switching their party registration,” said Hogan.
To start the year Democrats lost more members (about 8,000 total) than Republicans, but unlike Republicans, those losses are part of an ongoing trend in state party membership decline. Republicans have seen a 37 percent gain over the last decade while Democrats lost 12 percent. Third-party membership saw a 4,000 person increase in January and February.
Hogan said unregistering from a party doesn’t change much for a voter given Louisiana operates on a jungle primary system. The only thing you miss out on is voting in Presidential primaries.
“It is a way that people can symbolically register their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a political party and by switching registration one certainly is able to send a signal in that way,” said Hogan.
The bulk of the GOP’s losses came in January, where 5,503 members left the party. Similar drop-offs of party identification for the GOP were not seen in the opening months of 2017 or 2013.
Hogan said it’s an interesting phenomenon, but not one that will likely have any short-term electoral impacts on statewide Republican dominance.
“In the last election at the Presidential level Donald Trump received the same percentage of the vote that he received four years earlier,” said Hogan.
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