Voter registration and turnout is a piece of the campaign puzzle that polls can't account for and reporters love to ignore. As such, I haven't yet seen a thorough examination by the mainstream media of the flood of new registrants signing up this cycle. To fill the void, Edge of the West crunches their own numbers. While I'm not vouching for these calculations necessarily, it's as good place as any to start. Listed below are the new registrant totals from some key states, all from January-August 2008 (except PA, which starts in April).
- Colorado: 13,352 Republicans, 66,516 Democrats, 23,437 Independents
- Florida: 77,196 Republican, 209,422 Democrats, 26,100 Independents
- Iowa: 7,515 Republicans, 69,301 Democrats, 62,922 Independents
- Nevada: 1,230 Republicans, 51,457 Democrats, 7,550 Independents
- North Carolina: 20,363 Republicans, 171,955 Democrats, 123,605 Unaffiliated
- Pennsylvania: 289 Republicans, 98,137 Democrats, 15,907 Independents (no aff.& other)
To give these numbers some historical perspective, in 2004, President Bush won Colorado by 99,523; Florida by 380,978; Iowa by 10,059; Nevada by 21,500; and NC by 435,317. Kerry won Pennsylvania by 144,248 votes.
Edge of the West couldn't dig up any info on Ohio and Michigan, which is too bad. Nonetheless, these figures clearly illustrate the effect of voter registration efforts by Obama (who is outflanking McCain badly), the labor unions, and other organizations. And they're just getting cranked up.
(H/T Tom Sugrue)
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