Opinion: Dems up, Repubs down in California

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California has more registered Democrats, American Independents and decline-to-states than it did four years ago, according to figures released today by Secretary of State Debra Bowen, but fewer of everything else: Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, Peace and Freedoms all lost voters. And I strongly suspect that the American Independents are up only because voters mistakenly believed that by registering ‘Independent’ they were registering small-i ‘independent,’ or decline-to-state.

Those decliners had been the fastest growing voter group here, but the excitement over the Billary-Barama February 5 primary got the Democratic Party lots of new blood. The party undoubtedly is hoping its newbies will stick around for the big-stakes fight against John McCain in November. Bowen said she is hoping California’s new voters will vote on Tuesday, too. It’s good to have dreams.

The numbers: Out of 23 million people in the state who are eligible to vote, 70% -- 16.1 million -- have registered. Compare that with 15 million in 2004. Democrats have a net gain of 500,000, to bring their registered troops up to 7 million, or 43.75% of all registered voters in the state. Republicans lost 120,000 and are now at 5.2 million in California, or 32.53%. Decliners are at 3.1 million -- 19.4%.

It’s also interesting to note where these voters are -- and aren’t. Registration is second-highest in Republican-rich Orange County (84.97% registered; 45.88% of them are GOP). It is exceeded by, of all places, sparsely populated Sierra County and almost matched by other mountain and foothill counties like Alpine and Plumas. The most Republican of counties is Modoc, in the northeastern corner of the state, with 50.22% GOP voters, which comes out to 2,641 people.

Marin County, north of San Francisco, is up there in registration -- 80.64% of eligible voters, of which 53.89% are Democrats. It is one of nine counties, of California’s 58, that is more than half Democrat.

One of those is Los Angeles County, with 4.06 million registered voters (that’s 71.01% of the 5.7 million people who are eligible). The county has far more people registered here than any other county; compare with 1.5 million in Orange and 1.3 million in San Diego.

Democrats account for 50.96% in L.A. County, Republicans for 25.05%. Registration numbers are dismal in the Inland Empire and parts of the Central Valley.

Where would you look for registered Greens? No surprise -- they are thickest in Santa Cruz, Sonoma and San Francisco, all of which have more than 2% Green registration. The homeland for Libertarian Party members appears to be Calaveras County of jumping frog fame with 1.16% of registered voters(although in raw numbers, L.A. has the most of everyone in any category).