Unenrolled voters surpass Dems across city
Statewide trend ‘been evolving for a long time’
There are now more unenrolled voters in Boston than there are Democrats, per new data, as the city proves no exception to the statewide trend.
Boston’s 444,085 registered voters include 209,801 unenrolled residents and 207,323 Democrats and 22,097 Republicans.
The unenrolled tally has steadily risen in recent years, mirroring statewide trends, where unenrolled significantly outpace the Dems, with the Republican enrollment further back.
According to media reports from 2016, there were 205,500 enrolled Dems, 149,783 unenrolled and 24,909 in the GOP, according to voter rolls provided to the Herald.
“That’s been evolving for a long time,” said Larry DiCara, a former Boston City Council president who has studied elections in the Hub for decades. “It’s all part of the changing demographics of the city.”
DiCara said the influxes of younger voters who’ve moved in from elsewhere mean that institutional ties to the Democratic Party just aren’t the same. It’s now the older, longtime Dems who came to the party through the local priests and labor organizations who remain enrolled in the party, whereas the younger people “prefer not to associate with a party” even if they’re actually often left of the self-described Democrats.
Only the Democrats and Republicans are considered “parties” in Massachusetts. But the voters unenrolled in both of those can choose between 30 “legal political designations” — basically, third parties that don’t have
enough support to gain their own line. People who check off a political-designation box are still counted among the unenrolled.
The most popular of those in Boston are the Libertarians, who count 1,422 registered voters checking off their box.
Then comes the United Independent Party, with 1,401 people checking off the box of the political party formerly run by onetime gubernatorial hopeful Evan Falchuck. The UIP, with Falchuk atop the ticket, did well enough in 2014 to qualify as a full party — which led to Secretary of State Bill Galvin, to the ire of Falchuk, voicing concern that people were accidentally signing up for it while thinking they were simply becoming unenrolled independents.
People enrolled in a party can’t pull the primary ballot of a different party, though the unenrolled, even those with political designations, can choose to pull either party’s ballot.
Then among the political designations there’s a dropoff before reaching the Green-Rainbow Party, with 375 people checking their box. In next comes the Socialists, with 263, the Conservative Party with 226 and the American Independent Party with 214.
Other designations are holdovers from movements years ago.
“The prohibitionists used to have enough members to have a line on the ballot,” DiCara said, noting one in that vein. The political designation still exists for those teetotalers, but no one in Boston has it checked off.
And the state version of Jesse Jackson’s old Rainbow Coalition, led here by legendary Boston pol Mel King, counts 19 registered voters.
Then there’s some more tongue-in-cheek designations, like the Pirate Party, which boasts 67 Bostonians. The pirates advocate for privacy and transparency, plus some vaguely lefty causes.
Then there’s the 100 Bostonians who have designated themselves as part of the Pizza Party, which doesn’t really have apparent political positions, but whose founder supported Republican President Donald Trump.
Others, like the “Timesizing Not Downsizing” party, which seeks a shorter work week, came from the efforts of one eccentric candidate. In that party’s case, it was Phil Hyde, who tried to run against then-U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy in 2000.