California Republicans hit rock bottom

[brooklynite]

Source: Politico

SAN FRANCISCO — The state that spawned the "Reagan Revolution’’ and Richard M. Nixon just experienced a watershed moment — the California Republican Party was officially relegated to third-party status.

In the culmination of the withered state GOP’s long slide toward near-political irrelevance here, new voter registration data released this week show the once-robust party trails behind both Democrats and “no party preference” in the nation's most populous state. The California Republican Party is now outnumbered by independent voters by 73,000, according to Political Data Inc., which tabulates voter file data from county registrars.

...snip...

Among California’s 19 million registered voters, the latest statistics — as of 15 days before the June 5 primary — show that Democrats now make up 8.4 million or 44.6 percent of the electorate.

That compares with 4,844,803 no-party-preference voters, or 25.5 percent of the state’s voters and 4,771,984 Republicans, who both make up about 25.1 percent. The California Secretary of State’s office is expected to release its own official count later this week.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/30/california-republicans-third-party-status-613568

[Mc Mike]

1. Nows the time to legislate 'only the top 2 parties are allowed to participate in debates'.

[KPN]

8. Perfect

[underpants]

2. Hmmm I heard about a "Red Wave" coming in Cali on the radio last week

Guess not.

[lagomorph777]

37. Maybe that was a Red Tide.

[dawg day]

3. Boy, I wish we could go for actual majority popular vote in the national election

What this means, of course, is that literally millions of California votes -- those who vote Democrat over the bare minimum-- has no effect at all, and much less than just a few votes the other way in a "swing" state.

[blkyank1]

6. But isn't that why...

Others would argue that would be harmful to the interests of many states and their voters. If we went to a national
popular vote, the most efficient means to get votes would be to advertise and campaign in high population states
and focus on urban/suburban issues to run up the tally of voters from the cities. Rural social issues may be blown off
as backward but they do have vital economic issues involving farming that should be addressed.

They should keep the current system which forces candidates to campaign in the swing states while the states
themselves all agree to honor a popular vote winner by awarding their electoral votes accordingly.

[cstanleytech]

9. Have two elections then.

One for the office of President which is elected by the popular vote and the other for the office of VP which is elected via the electoral college.
That or make it so if you only win the EC or the popular vote you only get a 2 years term however if you win both you get a full 4 year term.

[modrepub]

18. I'd Bet That for The Most Part

The urban areas are generating the bulk of the US Tax Receipts. Why shouldn't those areas have more of a say than the rural areas that generate lower tax receipts and for the most part have declining and aging population bases?

[Sophia4]

19. You are right. Millions of Californians are virtually disenfranchised in presidential

elections. I did the math. It's shockingly horrible.

[mountain grammy]

4. Guess Frank Graham's plea to California evangelicals

isn't working.

[peabody]

30. I hope not.

I just saw his advertisement for his outreach here on television last night. He’s bringing his poison to several events. I just hope it’ll be sparsely attended and people won’t fall for this modern day pharisee.

[pstokely]

31. might just be for $$$ begging

from blood red states

[Hekate]

5. We shall see how it plays out. Fingers crossed.

[NewJeffCT]

7. Connecticut Republicans have been that way for a long time

I suspect Massachusetts is similar? A bigger story is why does the state have less than 50% of the population registered to vote? 19 million registered voters, according to the article, out of a population of 39.5 million?

Here are the totals for CT as of the start of 2017

Unaffiliated are 956,000
Minor parties are 32,000
Democrats are 848,000
Republicans are 481,000

2.317 million registered out of a population of 3.588 million, or 64.5%. Only 20.8% are Republicans, while 36.6% are Democrats and 41.3% unaffiliated.

[continentalop2]

13. There are only 24 million eligible voters in CA

So that's about 80%, not 50%. About 13% of CA residents are not citizens, and a quarter are children.

[Sophia4]

20. The percentage of non-citizens may be somewhat higher in California than in other states,

but the percentage of children is probably not bigger, may even be smaller than in other states.

How many eligible voters there are in a state should not make any difference in presidential elections. We should have one person, one vote.

[NewJeffCT]

25. I just used registered voters versus the entire state population

The voting eligible population in Connecticut is 2.561 million, meaning over 90% of eligible voters are registered.

[NewJeffCT]

26. 25.017 million

according to 2016 records. So, 19 million registered out of 25 million eligible is still only 76% registered.

Link is to a google document:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BXeyNrr65eK-EN9QbU2RdvBsKrTI_hFEx-BFqw7l4xQ/edit#gid=0

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Remind voters: Trump equals Republicon equals tRump equals CON. . . . nt

[NCjack]

11. Looks like Trump's screwing of California produced a good result for DEMs. nt

[C Moon]

12. Then how the hell is it that I'm surrounded by RWNJ Republican neighbors?! :/

Just dumb luck, I guess: and I'm not living in an upper class area.
Or, more likely, they are just more vocal about liking Trump, than those who can't stand him.

[dembotoz]

29. which is why i do not follow stories like this like gospel

around where i live gop gotv just crushes

[continentalop2]

14. Sure. "Independents"

How many of them are long time republicans who just want to be able to say to their liberal neighbors that they're "independents"? And how many republicans re-registered with no party affiliation so that they could ratfuck the democratic primary?

[Sophia4]

21. I've registered voters. A lot of decline to states are young voters who will probably

vote Democratic or Green. Another contingent really doesn't know that much about politics and probably will vote only if strongly encouraged.

Also, there may be some voters who don't want their employers to know how they vote. The voting rolls are public information.

Only those registered as Democrats can vote in the Democratic primary in California I believe.

[R B Garr]

28. Exactly, This is why claiming to be an Independent is meaningless and

really just deceptive.

[Le Gaucher]

15. This is actually not good news when combined with the top 2 primary rule

Given that many of the unaffiliated may be closet Republicans.


There are so many people running as democrats ( even Republicans have a better chance running as a democrat) that the D vote in the primary gets splintered to the extent that it is probable the top 2 happens to only have Republicans

[R B Garr]

27. Gotta agree with the closet Republican's angle. They aren't going

to let Democrats clog up all the ballots without some way to sabotage. Your scenario sounds likely.

[Le Gaucher]

32. Here is another article about it....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/in-southern-california-democrats-play-the-blame-game-as-house-races-loom/2018/05/30/fedae90e-636d-11e8-a768-ed043e33f1dc_story.html?utm_term=.f8d9bfee64a8

[R B Garr]

36. Great article. There is a candidate on my local ballot who

is datamining a fellow Democratic competitor and making it about exposing details of his divorce, not fighting Republicans. Not much of a Revolution, but that is what they do.

This article reinforces the reality in the field. Knock on doors, not Democrats. Great slogan.

The comments section is brutal. You can recognize the worn out Revolution comments.

[JI7]

16. That's what demographic Changes will do nationwide.

Majority of California is made up of minorities.

That's what is being resisted by trump supporters and continued support for him.

[Honeycombe8]

17. Whoa. The Blue Wave is coming!!!! nt

[beachbum bob]

22. The 2 vote getters for primaries in California ends any voter advantage for democrats

A sucky system

[padfun]

23. I dont agree.

So you all continue your current system and keep repugs in power.

We got rid of ours and now we are a great state.

[roamer65]

24. Hopefully the party is wiped out in November in CA.

[malthaussen]

33. I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning. n/t

[barbtries]

34. it's been at least since the gw years

that i could even figure out how a person could stand to be a republican.

love my home state.

[Uncle Joe]

35. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread brooklynite

[Puzzler]

38. Good!!!

-Puzzler