CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Political parties are becoming less important in West Virginia and across the United States, according to the president and CEO of Repass Research and the director of the MetroNews West Virginia Poll.
“You see the roles of independent voters in every state growing,” said Rex Repass, a longtime pollster, on Wednesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
“Whether it’s politics or brands of any kind, consumers and the public, the voting public, are less loyal than they were 20 years ago.”
That appears to be proven in the numbers of registered Democrats in the Mountain State.
At the end of the registration period for the 2016 primary election earlier this month, 577,977 West Virginians had registered as Democrats, down from 613,518 ahead of the 2014 primary, according to data from the Secretary of State’s Office.
It’s an erosion that’s been going on for decades.
In 1994, the numbers indicated 65 percent of all state voters were registered Democrats. That rate has now fallen to 46.5 percent.
Republican registrations are on the rise, but not at the decrease rate seen among Democrats.
The GOP accounts for about 30.2 percent of all registered voters in West Virginia, which is up slightly from 2014 when the rate was 28.8 percent, but is overall about the same as 1994 with 30.3 percent.
One in five registered voters have no party affiliation in 2016, a slight increase from 2014. During the primary election, those voters have the option of requesting either Democratic or Republican ballots.
In comparison, about four percent of Mountain State voters claimed no party in 1994.
Issues, Repass said, are becoming more relevant for voters than parties.
“What is happening is people are deciding for themselves what benefits them, what issues are most important to them and they’re either aligned, barely aligned with a party, or they have said, ‘I am an independent and I’m choosing what ballot I want to vote,'” he explained.
At the county level, Democrats lost ground during the last two years in 51 counties while Republican registrations grew in 44 counties and independent registrations were up in 46 counties.
“This is a trend that we’ve been seeing and polling for a number of years and we now have real data from the Secretary of State’s Office,” Repass said.
The next MetroNews West Virginia Poll for the presidential and gubernatorial races in the Mountain State is scheduled to be released next week ahead of the May 10 primary election.