Every month or so I check the county-by-county voter registration figures at the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office to see if the shift toward more Republicans and fewer Democrats is continuing.
And it is.
The August registration totals show that two more counties—Clay and Summers—have now flipped, although it remains close. Clay has 1,896 Republicans and 1,872 Democrats, while Summers has 2,915 Republicans and 2,888 Democrats.
With those switches, 46 of the 55 counties now have Republican majorities. Just eight years ago, Democrats held the advantage in 46 counties.
The remaining Democratic counties are Boone, Braxton, Gilmer, Logan, Marion, McDowell, Mingo, Monongalia, and Webster. And a couple of those counties are on the verge of going red. Democrats outnumber Republicans by just 115 voters in Gilmer County and 254 voters in Braxton County.
The switch by Clay and Summers follows the flip earlier this year in the state’s largest county—Kanawha—and Fayette County. Meanwhile, Democrats are barely hanging on in the longtime Democratic strongholds of Monongalia and Marion Counties.
Democrats still outnumber Republicans by 1,598 in Monongalia County. However, the Democratic advantage was 9,738 just eight years ago. During the same time period, the Democratic advantage of 12,136 voters in Marion County has slipped to just 974.
The largest Democratic advantage is in Logan County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 9,443 to 6,317. However, Logan is losing voters due to population decline. Logan County has 22,534 voters now, while eight years ago there were 27,301 voters.
Statewide, 488,535 West Virginians are registered Republican, 354,052 as Democrat and 299,104 as independent/no party. That translates into 41 percent Republican registration, 30 percent Democrat and 25 percent independent/no party. The remaining four percent belong to the Mountain Party, the Libertarian Party or another third party.
Although West Virginia has gone deeply red in the last two decades, it has a long way to go before it becomes the most Republican state. That distinction belongs to Wyoming, where 81 percent of the voters are Republican and all 23 counties have Republican majorities.