The latest voter registration numbers from the Arizona Secretary of State’s office show that independent voters edged out Republicans in July to become the largest single group of voters in the state.
Independents – officially unaffiliated or “other” voters who do not align with a party – added 35,677 new voters from January to July to reach 1.45 million, or 34.55% of all registered voters in the state.
Experts say there are several reasons voters end up in the “other” category: Some are simply tired of the major parties, others don’t want to be labeled and younger voters seem to prefer to be unaffiliated. Bentz noted that independents were the largest group of registered voters for around two years leading up to the 2016 elections.
Kyle Kondik, managing editor for Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, believes that party registration trends can often be a “lagging indicator” of political reality. “When it comes to actual voters who show up, what we see is they’re closer to about 28% in a presidential election, and in a midterm election they’re closer to 25%,” Bentz said of unaffiliated voters.
Richer believes that the reluctance to be associated with a specific party has also led to a push for change in how elections are run, leading to the creation of groups like Save Democracy Arizona, which is pushing for an open primary election. That would put candidates from all parties on one primary ballot which any registered voter could use, whether affiliated with a party or not.
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