As you may have read in the New York Times yesterday Senator Obama's campaign is making an effort to run essentially a 26-state strategy of "battleground states" for the general election. I use the term battleground not in the sense that there are 26 toss up states, but counting all the states that lean to one candidate or the other plus the ones where things right now are neck and neck there are approximately 26 states in play this election cycle (at least at this point in the general election, things do whittle themselves down as the campaign progresses). One of the key elements to moving these states into the blue column this year will be voter registration drives. More after the jump.
Understanding that it occurred to me that there appears to be no centralized clearinghouse containing up-to-date month to month raw numbers of new voters registered in these key states. In this diary I have tried to compile from publically available records (namely, the elections board or secretary of state websites from the respective states) the latest numbers from some (but unfortunately not all) of these key states. I thought that by putting out the most current information at this time could serve as a benchmark for us to see how well things are going month to month in these key states, both were things look good and where more resources and effort need to be expended. Toward that end if anyone is connected to the Obama campaign please make the suggestion that they put out monthly voter registration targets for each of these states. It will give people a goal to achieve, a marker that has served the campaign well in getting people to donate with their requests x number of donors to donate by a date certain.
THE NUMBERS
North Carolina-- As of June 7, 2008, there are 2,634,241 registered Democrats in the Tar Heel state and 1,933,069 Reps. For comparison sake as of May 10, 2008, there were 2,632,828 Dems and 1,935,425 Reps.
Pennsylvania --- As of April 17, 2008, there are 4,200,109 registered Democrats in the Keystone state and 3,186,057 Reps.
Colorado --- As of April 9, 2008, there are 900,823 registered Democrats in the Colorado and 1,017,7388. For comparison sake as of March, 2008, there were 893,472 registered Democrats and 1,015,993 Reps. In other words right now the pace of Democratic voter registration is exceeding that of the Republicans.
Nevada --- As of April, 2008, there are 449,002 active voting Democrats (Nevada's way of categorizing those voters who have voted enough times to remain on the voter rolls) and 398,229 active voting Republicans. Compare that to March, 2008, where there were 441,676 active voting Democrats and 396,489 active voting Republicans. Yet again another state were Democratic voter registration is exceeding that of the Republican party.
Iowa --- As of June 2, 2008, there are 664,031 active voting Democrats and 577,914 active voting Republicans. Compare that to May 1, 2008, where there were 660,693 active voting Democrats registered to vote and 577,619 active voting Republicans. Again another instance of the Democratic voter registration drive going at a pace exceeding that of the Republican party.
Oregon --- As of April, 2008, there are 869,538 registered Democrats and 676,895 registered Republicans. Compare that to March, 2008, where there were 803,042 registered Democrats and 685,469 registered Republicans. Those numbers are outstanding. There are almost 9,000 fewer Republicans in April than in March, and over 66,000 more Democrats in April than in March. Go Oregon!
Maine --- As of November, 2006, there are 309,525 registered Democrats and 279,641 registered Republicans. However the biggest group in Maine are independents who make up 375,235 of the voter registration rolls.
New Jersey --- As of May 29, 2008, there are 1,682,352 registered Democrats in the Garden state and 1,030,142 registered Republicans. Again the biggest group of voters are independents who number 2,238,209.
Alaska --- Why do you ask Alaska, well because the last Rasmussen poll of the state back in early May showed Senator Obama within 5 points of Senator McCain (48 to 43). As of May 5, 2008, there are 71,832 registered Democrats, 119,031 registered Republicans, and 251,196 independents. Compared to April 4, 2008, where there were 71,707 registered Democrats, 118,853 registered Republicans, and 250,531 independents. This is one of the few states I have seen where the Republican voter registration drive is outpacing the Democrats; you know what that means for you Democrats in Alaska: Crank it up!
Unfortunately, I have no usable information (meaning numbers for the party breakdown among registered voters) for the following states:
Virginia, New Hampshire, Ohio, Mississippi, South Carolina, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, New Mexico, Montana, Minnesota, Washington (apparently the state website requires someone to pay a $30 monthly subsciption to access its voter registration statistics), North Dakota, Nebraska, Indiana, or Florida.
As well be seen there are quite a number of states that I have no information that I could obtain from the relevant public source so if anyone has any information on those states please chime in and let me know what it is and where you got the information.
One final thought. There have been way too many Presidental elections decided by one or two states, with the rest of the country confined to largely monochromatic clumps of blue or red isn't it time that more of this country feel the joy of turning blue. Help out by registering new voters. To that end, I have posted a clip of our favorite political pundit with a goatee where he discusses the potential for a very expanded electoral map (its about midway through the clip). If this will be an electoral landslide it will require Obama's lean states to move to safe states, a number of toss ups to become Obama lean states, and several McCain lean states to become tossups. Again the one sure way to help make that happen is by registering new voters in these states.
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