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Opinion: Californians continue to drift away from the major political parties

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A new report by the California secretary of state shows that more than 1 in 5 registered voters in California don’t align themselves with any political party, large or small. That’s the highest percentage on record. And although it’s not much higher than the level last October -- 20.4% vs. 20% -- it’s way above the level eight years ago, when a little more than 15% of registered voters signed up unaffiliated.

You could look at these stats in a couple of different ways. The rise in ‘decline to state’ voters started in the late 1990s after California started allowing unaffiliated voters to cast ballots in any party’s primary elections. That approach was thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court after two election cycles, but the Democratic and Republican parties typically allowed decline-to-state voters to keep casting ballots in their primaries.

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That gave unaffiliated voters the enviable flexibility to jump into the party contests that are most interesting in any given year. But with the shift to open primaries this year, each vote cast affects the outcome of every party’s primary -- because, well, there are no more party primaries, just a form of electoral semifinals. So if flexibility was a factor before, there’s no reason for it to be one now.

Another interpretation is that voters’ perception of the parties is that they have moved further from the center, making them less attractive to people whose views aren’t strictly left or right. But here’s another data point: Over the last eight years, the percentage of voters who signed up as Democrats has bounced around a little bit, but it’s about the same today as it was eight years ago -- 44.4% in February 2003, 44.0% in February 2011. On the other hand, the percentage of voters who register Republican has dropped steadily over the same period, from 35.2% to 30.9%.

One might argue that state Republicans have grown more conservative over the past decade, but state Democrats couldn’t move any further to the left than they already were. (Just kidding, lefty pals!) Anyway, the one-sided nature of the shift suggests the increase in decline-to-state voters is really a move away from one major party -- the GOP -- not two. If so, that doesn’t bode well for a Republican rebound anytime soon.

-- Jon Healey

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