More and more California voters are registering with no party preference

(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

last updated 23 February 2016

New voter registration data released Monday in California shows that almost 24 percent of voters in the Golden State have no party preference.

That term is used by officials to described independents, the Los Angeles Times reports, and is up nearly three percentage points since 2012. Democrats represent 43 percent of the state's electorate, while Republicans are down almost three points from 2012 with less than 27 percent of the electorate. "The Democratic share of registrants has been flat, the independent share has been climbing fast, and the Republican share has been sinking just as fast," Eric McGhee, elections researcher at Public Policy Institute of California, told the Times.

McGhee said that new, young registrants are "heavily independent and to a lesser extent Democratic," while "elderly people are more likely to be Republican. Since people tend to stick with their party registration even if their politics change, this means we should expect these registration trends to continue." The data also shows that voter registration is down two points, from 72 percent in 2012 to 70 percent now. "If the election were held today, over seven million otherwise eligible Californians would be left on the sidelines," Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a statement.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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