Dems increase, GOP declines
Dan Bumgardner was a lifelong Republican supporter until the 2016 election.
The 63-year-old former investment banker from Darien worked for the Republican presidential campaigns of the late Sen. John McCain in 2008 and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich in 2016. But after the election of President Donald Trump, he changed his voter registration from unaffiliated to Democrat and was elected a Democratic member of the Darien Board of Finance.
“The 2016 election changed everything for me. The tenor, tone and character emanating from the White House was very disappointing for me,” Bumgardner said. “The party had become something that
no longer represented my values.”
A Hearst Connecticut Media analysis of state voter registration data from just before the 2016 election to two weeks ago shows Bumgardner is part of a trend in Darien and across the state. While a plurality remain unaffiliated, Connecticut voters are increasingly identifying as Democrats, even in former Republican strongholds, while the Republican party across the state has seen a decline in affiliations since 2016.
Voter registration data from Sept. 14 for every town in Connecticut each year from 2016 through 2020 from the Secretary of the State’s office provides a snapshot of registration through the state.
The data shows Democrats have gained at least 8545 active registered Democratic voters — a 1 percent increase — since 2016. Republican registration was down 1 percent on Sept. 14, compared to 2016.
“I didn’t realize Democrats had an increase like that and that’s unusual, that’s new,” said Secretary of State Denise Merrill.
Unaffiliated voters are still the largest group in the state — they made up about 42 percent of voters as of Sept. 14 and had increased in number by 2 percent since 2016.
The total number of active registered voters in Connecticut is also climbing, a good indicator that the state is likely to see record turnout in the Nov. 3 election, said Mara Suttman-Lea, assistant professor of government at Connecticut College, who studies voter registration.
From 2016 to Sept. 14, 2020, Connecticut saw a 1 percent increase in active voter registration. While 2016 was a record year for voter registration in the state, 2020 has already exceeded that high water mark by more than 25,000 voters and the state is just entering a peak month for registrations, October. Registration can continue up through Election Day.
A record 2.2 million Connecticut residents were active registered voters on Sept. 14. The state has an estimated 2.6 million eligible voters, according to University of Florida Pro
fessor Michael McDonald’s U.S. Elections Project.
Suttman-Lea, Merrill, local registrars of voters and town committee officials said high interest in the presidential election and a wave of new Connecticut residents relocating from New York City were likely factors driving up registrations, while the ongoing pandemic could be a factor preventing some registrations.
Connecticut implemented automatic voter registration at the Department of Motor Vehicles in August of 2016, driving up voter registrations over time, but those offices have been closed during the pandemic and therefore would not be a major contributor to increases in the past six months.
Big Democratic gains stemmed from voter registration changes in suburban Fairfield County towns, like Darien, Ridgefield, Wilton and Greenwich, that were historically Republican towns. Republicans made smaller gains, mostly in Eastern Connecticut, including a huge jump in GOP support in New London. The Naugatuck Valley has remained dominant Republican turf, next to the blue power of the I-91 corridor.
Mansfield, New Haven and Waterbury, all towns that in the past four years have completed voter canvasses to clean their rolls of people who have moved away or died, saw the largest declines in total active registration. New Haven reduced its active voter list by over 20,000 people.
The cities of New London, Norwalk and Bridgeport saw the largest percent increases in total active registered voters from 2016 to 2020, with New London experiencing a 28 percent increase already by mid-September. Norwalk saw a 14 percent increase in total active voters, including a 19 percent increase in Democrats.
“We know about that trend but I don’t know if we have a definite answer [why],” said Eloisa Melendez, chair of the Norwalk Democratic Town Committee. “I really think people are just moving into the city.”
The co-founder of Norwalk Women Who Vote, Sharon Baanante, 44, of Norwalk said she changed her voter registration from unaffiliated to Democrat in 2019.
“I was unaffiliated for most of my life and I didn’t vote up and down the ticket for one party,” Baanante said. “When Trump came into the office I was really turned off by some of the Republican administration’s unwillingness to stand up against Trump and his racist, misogynist, homophobic and xenophobic statements, executive orders and actions. I did it to support a party that only believes in equality and justice for all and not just for some.”
Fairfield County Democrats: “It’s mushroomed”
The town with the largest percent increase in the number of active registered Democrats from 2016 to 2020 in the state was Darien. The town saw a 27 percent increase in the number of active registered Democrats from 2016 to 2020, paired with a 12 percent decrease in the number of Republicans.
“It’s not as lonely as it used to be,” said David Bayne, Democratic Town Committee chair of Darien, who’s been involved with Darien Democrats for more than a decade. “When I first got involved we were like 14 percent of the voter registration and we grew by about 5 percent between 2005 to about 2016, when we were about 20 percent.
And then all of the sudden it’s mushroomed and accelerated in the last four years.”
Another red bastion, Ridgefield experienced a 19 percent increase in the number of Democrats and a 10 percent decrease in Republicans. Wilton had a 19 percent increase in Democrats and 14 percent decrease in Republicans. In both those towns, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in September for the first time in four years.
Similarly, Greenwich added 1741 Democrats, an 18 percent increase, while losing 1279 Republicans, a 9 percent decrease.
Greenwich, Darien, Wilton and Ridgefield all favored Democrat Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, but supported Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, often by large margins.
“Suburbs across the country have been getting a lot of attention this election cycle because of comments from the president,” said Suttman-Lea. “It doesn’t necessarily seem to be a strategy that’s working. The white suburban female voter — and in this context we’re talking about the wealthy, white female suburban voter — that may have flipped for Trump in 2016, there is a shift in that demographic and that geographic party back toward the Democratic Party.”
Republican upticks
Across the state, New London has bucked statewide trends with overall growth in active voter registrations from 2016 to 2020, fueled by increases in the Republican party. New London saw a 28 percent increase in voter registration including a 160 percent in Republican voters, or 2379 people. Democrats still outnumber Republicans by nearly 4,000 voters, but that’s a smaller margin than previously.
“We definitely have been noticing an uptick and a big one,” said Kat Goulert, chair of the New London Republican Party. “The last few months have been a whirlwinds of people coming in to register as Republican... By and large people are unhappy with what’s happening with the country, with cancel culture, with certain things being forced on them. There’s a throw back to this live and let live ideology. What we’re getting as feedback is people are very unhappy with the progressive leftist agenda.”
Kysim Thompson, 40, of New London changed his voter registration from unaffiliated to Republican two weeks ago, he said. A Black man, he felt Black voters were bedrock supporters of the Democratic Party but hadn’t received the policies and support they deserved in return, he said. He discussed his decision to become a Republican with his grandmother, a longtime Democrat.
“It’s not easy to say you’re voting Republican,” he said. “You would have think I killed five people in the same day when I said I’m voting Republican. I told my grandmother I’m still waiting for the clear cut answer of what Democrats have done for us.”
Newington has also noticeably trended more Republican since 2016. The town has increased active Republican voters by 32 percent, 1181 people, while Democratic voters decreased by 38 percent. Overall that town’s registration declined by 9 percent since 2016. Democratic and Republican registrations in the town are now essentially equal.
“I didn’t realize that that many people have switched,” said Dominic Pane, chair of the Newington Republican Party. “We really haven’t been asking people to become Republicans we’ve just been sending a positive message. There’s probably a silent majority where they are also Trump supporters.”
Thousands more voters will register in October, November
Since Sept. 14, 2020, when Hearst Connecticut Media received its data, voters have continued to register to vote and can do so up through Election Day because the state has same day registration.
“We’re getting at least 30 or 40 [registrations] a day,” said Marcel Grenier, the Democratic Registrar of Voters in New Milford. “These numbers seem high but you already got to remember that a presidential [election] is coming. This is a lot more than usual. College kids are not going to school so they’re registering at home. And we got a huge influx of New Yorkers coming in. If you put all those factors together, I think that’s why it’s going crazy.”
Before the 2016 election, 74,738 people registered to vote in October and 59,279 in November, data shared by the Secretary of the State’s office shows. In 2018, tens of thousands of voters also registered in October and November.
Political observers therefore predict that Connecticut’s registration will continue to spike before the Nov. 3 election and may contribute to very high turnout.
“Connecticut is not alone in that,” said Suttman-Lea. “Even in places without very competitive elections, I would anticipate we’re going to see an uptick in registrations, at the very minimum because it’s a presidential election year, and turnout and registrations are just always higher in presidential election years. The extent to which it’s higher relative to 2016? It’s my sense that the narrative being spun around the stakes of this election are ultimately going to mean we’re going to see higher levels of registration at the end of the day when the final numbers are in.”
For information on how to vote in Connecticut and the 2020 election’s presidential, Congressional and state races visit the Connecticut Voters Guide at https:// www.ctpost.com/projects/2020/voter-guide/