Registered Republicans in Arizona and Maricopa County Continue to Increase Their Lead over Democrats

Registered Republicans in Arizona increased their lead over Democrats from about three percent to over four percent over the past year. This is the biggest gap since 2018.

Similarly, in Maricopa County, Republicans increased their lead from about four percent more than Democrats to almost 4.5 percent more, according to the latest numbers from the Arizona Secretary of State.

Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim O’Connor, who led the effort to stop the use of voting machine tabulators in last year’s midterm election, told The Arizona Sun Times the numbers show Democrats really didn’t sweep Arizona’s top offices this past election.

“Democrat policies have been failing miserably nationwide, statewide and internationally,” he said. “The pretended losses of Donald Trump, Kari Lake, Abe Hamadeh, Mark Finchem and others dating back to 2018 cover the truth of the matter. Arizona officials at every level of government in both political parties corrupted the votes of our citizens through maladministration, human error, bullying, intimidation, arrogance, ignorance,  gross lack of accountability, and cover up.”

The percentage of registered Republicans in Arizona increased over the past year from 34.50 percent to 34.68 percent, while the percentage of Democrats dropped from 31.35 percent to 30.53 percent. A year ago, Republicans made up 34 percent and Democrats 30 percent. This continued a trend of Republicans increasing that began in September 2021.

In Maricopa County, there are now 848,534 Republicans and 750,414 Democrats. Both parties lost voters within the past year; Republicans decreased by 60,079 and Democrats decreased by 65,971. Independents also decreased by 22,836 to 854,636. While Independents surpassed the number of Democrats several years ago, their numbers have remained close to Republicans, overtaking them a year ago. They currently constitute 34.9 percent of registered Maricopa County voters. Libertarians make up 20,608, or 0.9 percent, almost no change from a year ago.

An article in Axios last September contended that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling reversing Roe v. Wade last year would drive up women’s voter registrations. It cited TargetSmart, which found that in the week after the reversal, 70 more women than men in Arizona registered to vote. TargetSmart declared at the time, “[W]omen are registering to vote in record numbers since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.”

However, exit polls nationwide revealed that women increased their votes for the GOP in the 2022 midterm election. Women dropped their support for Democrats by 11 points.

Numbers from moving companies reveal that people are leaving Democratic-run states for Arizona, and settling in the red parts of the state like Maricopa County. About 62 percent of Arizona’s population lives in Maricopa County.

Nationwide, a Gallup survey found that leading up to 2022, party preferences shifted to favor Republicans by a five point advantage. Similarly, the number of Republican-leaning independents increased as the number of Democrat-leaning independents decreased. This was a change since earlier in 2021, when independents were evenly divided between Republican versus Democrat leaning.

While there are a large number of independents in Arizona, most of them are partisan. A Gallup survey in late 2019 found that only 11 percent of Americans identify as independents; the remaining 89 percent lean toward one of the two major political parties.

According to The Conversation, “[s]elf-identified Democrats are less likely than Republicans to turn out to vote — particularly in midterm elections.” An article from June 2020 in the political analysis site 538 attempted to explain why Arizona was trending less Republican, noting the election of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema as a Democrat as a reason. It concluded that it was due to Latino voters and urban areas.

However, compared to 2016, Latinos nationwide swung eight points toward Donald Trump and the GOP in 2020, dipping down to only 61 percent voting for Democrats. That trend continued in 2022, swinging 17 points towards the GOP compared to 2018, dropping to 12 points favoring Democrats. An exit poll after Arizona’s midterm election showed even more drastic results, with only a four percent difference between Latinos who voted for Kari Lake versus Katie Hobbs.

Similarly, urban voters nationwide decreased their support for the Democrats by 16 points compared to 2018.

A larger percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted in last year’s midterm election, 75.4 percent of their numbers compared to only 68.5 percent of their registered voters.

In 2022, according to Maricopa County:

75.4% of Republicans turned out, up from 2018

68.5% of Democrats turned out, down from 2018

There are more registered Republicans (1,436,852) than Democrats (1,270,544) in AZ

Yet…no GOP candidate benefited (Except the treasurer!😂) pic.twitter.com/4fJsV9EuH7

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) November 28, 2022

Although Arizona has some of the highest growth in the country, registered voters decreased over the past year. There were 4,351,446 registered voters in January 2022, which dropped to 4,161,736 last month. World Population Review ranks Arizona the ninth fastest growing state.

In 2020, former President Donald Trump lost the state by a little more than 10,000 votes, just .04% of the vote. Maricopa County was the only Arizona county to flip in the 2020 election. Trump won over 248,000 more votes in Arizona in 2020 than he did in 2016, even though he lost the race. Lake lost the governor’s race by 17,117 votes.

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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Arizona Republican Party Event” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.