The Independents Have It
The Iowa Secretary of State issues a report on the first day of each month with voter registration totals. The one released yesterday was particularly of interest, since it includes activity surrounding election day last month.
It is abundantly clear that independent, or no party, voters made the difference. Of Iowa’s four congressional districts, only western Iowa’s fourth district had a Republican registration advantage, nearly 100-thousand more Republicans than Democrats… “no party” votes even outpaced Democrats in the fourth by more than 40-thousand voters.
In each of the other three districts, including the two in eastern Iowa, Democrats had a voter registration advantage over Republicans, by 10 to 15-thousand registrants. Yet Republicans won each of those seats, including a flip in the third district.
But it’s the numbers from those two eastern Iowa districts that are striking. Yes, Democrats outpaced Republicans in terms of voter registration…but no party had more voters registered than either of them. In the northeast Iowa second district, no party voters outnumbered Democrats by nearly 16-thousand, and Republicans by 24-thousand. In the southeast Iowa first district, no party tallied 13-thousand more voters registered than Democrats, and more than 26-thousand more than Republicans.
That tells us a number of things. First, to have “no party” outpace *both* major parties demonstrates that each party has become so extreme, a growing number of folks don’t want to be associated with either of them. Second, it shows that predicting the outcome of races is virtually impossible. Both the first and second districts saw first-term GOP incumbents win, but by somewhat surprisingly large margins over Democrat opponents. That’s because of the “no party” voters trending that way. But since they by definition have no party loyalty, those voters could just as easily swing back in two years, or four years, etc.
So is it the candidate, or the party? When you have Republicans win in both eastern Iowa districts despite being in third place in terms of voter registration blocs…you have to assume it’s *not* the party.
