MyDD :: Three Million New Registered Republicans?

Three Million New Registered Republicans?

by Chris Bowers, Mon Oct 25, 2004 at 01:02:49 PM EST

Because Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, his advisers launched an effort to register millions of new GOP voters, calculating that, by raising the overall GOP percentage a point or two, they could go a long way toward ensuring the president's reelection. The Bush team concentrated efforts in heavily Republican precincts, particularly in fast-growing exurban counties, and last month, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie announced that the party had achieved its goal of 3 million new registrants.

3,000,000 sounds like a lot. However, is that really all that impressive?

For starters, according to Dave Leip, in 2000 there were 157,063,553 registered voters (plus Wisconsin, where registration is not necessary). According to Harris and Pew, 28.5% of registered voters self-identified as Republican in 2000, and 28.5% of registered voters self-identify as Republican in 2004. 28.5% of 157.1 million is 44.8 million.

Since 2000, the population of the United States has increased from 281.4 million to 294.5 million, an increase of 4.65%.With 44.8 million registered Republicans in 2000, and with the same percentage of registered voters self-identifying as Republicans in 2004 as in 2000, Republicans would have added 4.65%, or 2.1 million new voters, without doing anything at all. So, what does adding 3,000,000 new Republican voters really mean? It means the four-year effort by Republicans actually snagged about 1,000,000 new voters who would not have registered as Republicans anyway. In Philadelphia alone, over the past eighteen months we have added 300,000 new Democrats. This is 10% of the Republican nationwide total, in less than half the time.

I do not know if there are invisible armies of voters that will show up at the polls. Past experience tells me to be doubtful, but early turnout numbers tell me to be hopeful. I do know, however, that our new voter registration efforts have exceeded those of Republicans, and as such the higher the turnout, the better off Democrats will be on November 2nd. GOTV.

Tags: General 2008 (all tags)

Permalink :: 9 Comments :: Post a Comment

GOP faux machine (none / 0)

I dont doubt that they will turnout their followers, and drag in some more. But from what I've seen the ramifications of:

"It means the four-year effort by Republicans actually snagged about 1,000,000 new voters who would not have registered as Republicans anyway."

Are that most of them are in the south, or states that are not battlegrounds. We are beginning to see the miscalculations of Rove come into the open.

Rove sought a realignment on a national scale, but for 2004, the opportunities for Bush are even less than 2000 (remember the west coast?) four years later.

Rove thoght that Bush would have a 5:1 advantage in cash over the Democrat, and instead, things proved equal, probably more, in favor of the Democrat spending.

Rove thought that the Iraq war would divide the Democrats, but it has proved to be a disaster for Bush, that has motivated the Democratic Party voters, while producing grumbling among conservatives.

Rove didn't expect the Independent vote to surge, predicting a ~110M turnout, but it looks like we are heading to the ~120M turnout area.

For Rove's lapboy Sabato. First, Bush was the new FDR, then, he was the new Truman, and now, Bush is the new Wilson, lol, s-t-r-e-t-c-h.

by Jerome Armstrong on Mon Oct 25, 2004 at 01:18:45 PM EST

Re: GOP faux machine (none / 0)

Notice how he keeps mentioning Democrats (not sure Wilson, think he was GOP). I would think he would say Reagan. Bush is the next Harding or a redux of Bush41. Take your pick.

by yitbos96bb on Mon Oct 25, 2004 at 02:19:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: GOP faux machine (none / 0)

Wilson was a Democrat

by clawed on Mon Oct 25, 2004 at 02:24:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: GOP faux machine (none / 0)

Cool. Just being lazy. So He keeps mentioning Democrats. Funny about that.

by yitbos96bb on Mon Oct 25, 2004 at 02:36:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

A lot of college Dems wrongly signed up as Reps (none / 0)

There are all these stories from PA about college students, democrats, who were re-registered as Republicans by duplicitous republican operatives who were being paid to sign up republicans.

Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of those "new" republican registrants are really democrats planning on voting for Kerry who were signed up wrongly.

How ironic, that all the Republican dirty tricks may end up giving them a false sense of security that they are doing better than they really are.

by davidscott on Mon Oct 25, 2004 at 01:20:39 PM EST

Re: A lot of college Dems wrongly signed up as Rep (none / 0)

Lots of crossed out party affiliation w/ Rep checked and initialed in Oregon voter reg drives where voter reg workers were paid by the Republican registration. I think a substantial portion of that 3 million are invalid registrations motivated by voter reg workers' desire for profit. I would be very surprised if a substantial number of these supposed "new" Repub voters actually vote.

by AmandaD on Mon Oct 25, 2004 at 02:32:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Dead Republicans (5.00 / 1)

Don't Republicans die, too? According to the CDC's 1996 numbers, white people died at a rate of 906.9/100000. Raising that rate to the 4th power, that would mean the Republicans needed register 3.7 million new voters to keep up with population growth. If I'm correct, their goal was to come up about 700,000 short of natural growth.

by ZamboniGuy on Mon Oct 25, 2004 at 01:54:57 PM EST

Re: Dead Republicans (none / 0)

Good call!

by Geotpf on Mon Oct 25, 2004 at 02:22:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Dead Republicans (none / 0)

The Undead don't die...Everyone knows that.

by yitbos96bb on Mon Oct 25, 2004 at 02:35:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

You are not logged in.

In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.

If not, you can make an account right here. It's quick and free.