Rise Of Decline To State

Anthony Pignataro:

Being a “Decline to State” voter is apparently more popular than ever in California, according to this new report from the Secretary of State’s office.

Since late October 2006, the percentage of voters who don’t consider themselves aligned with any political party has increased from 18.7 percent to 20.3 percent (there are currently 23,551,699 registered voters in California, up from 22,652,190 in 2006, so you do the math).

The most popular Decline to State county in the state? That would be, surprisingly enough, San Francisco, where 29.59 percent of voters see themselves as politically unaligned.

New party registration numbers for the Democrats and Republicans are mixed, to say the least. Registered Democrats are apparently even more powerful in the state, rising from 42.5 percent of voters to 44.1 percent. Republican registrations, however, have dropped — from 34.3 percent in 2006 to 31.0 percent today.

Still, given the Democrats’ inability to deal with the state’s double-digit unemployment and the Republican’s seeming contentment with being in the powerless minority, the rise of Decline to States is hardly surprising or even all that bad.

NOV. 1, 2010