Friday, February 7, As of January, there were more active voters registered as Republicans than Democrats, according to a monthly report released Feb. The last time Republicans had an edge over Democrats in voter registration was in The shift helps cement its status as a purple state and could make it more difficult for Democrats to defend two U.
Senate seats and win back the presidency. That hurdle comes as the party faces a growing challenge to regain power in Washington. Since the pandemic, Democrats have watched with alarm as their advantage in the state has eroded. Republicans since then had been slowly closing that gap. Not every state registers voters by party, and it can be difficult to compare trends in those that do because of differences in voter registration procedures and state political histories.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats hold their narrowest voter registration edge in at least a half-century. What was an advantage of 1. And in Arizona, where Democrats had been closing a registration gap with Republicans for the past decade, that trend reversed after and the party again lost ground. Dan Lee, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the shift in Nevada serves as a reminder that it is a swing state, even if it voted for a Democrat in every presidential election since until President Donald Trump flipped it in November.
Trump carried Nevada narrowly in the presidential election. Data from AP VoteCast showed that self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaners outnumbered Democrats voting in that election, though self-identified party can differ from party registration. AP VoteCast found that a majority of self-identified moderates voting in the state, including nearly 2 in 10 self-identified moderate Republicans, supported Kamala Harris in Chuck Muth, a longtime conservative campaign consultant in Nevada, pointed to routine voter roll maintenance and changes to the way the state registers its voters.
After the November election, for example, Clark County, a Democratic stronghold that is home to Las Vegas, removed nearly , inactive voters. More voters registered as Democrats than as Republicans tend to be inactive in Nevada, according to historical statewide voter data.
