Is Orange County feeling a little less blue these days?
Voter registration data suggests that may be the case of late.
Over the past five months, Republicans have seen an increase of 8,745 registered voters in Orange County. Democrats, on the other hand, lost 4,093 registered voters since Feb. 20.
“Registration spikes like this generally tend to reflect an increase in enthusiasm for the party that’s gaining,” said Dan Schnur, a former campaign consultant who teaches political messaging at UC Berkeley and USC.
“In this current landscape, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Republicans increasing their numbers,” Schnur said.
Republicans — nationally — are riding a burst of momentum in recent weeks, sparked in part by the turmoil in the Democratic Party.
Ever since a disastrous debate performance last month, President Joe Biden, 81, has faced increased scrutiny about his age and mental fitness and mounting pressure to step aside from his re-election effort.
For update, see: Biden drops out of the 2024 race, endorses Harris
The president also had to cancel campaign events this week after testing positive for COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Republicans rallied at their party’s nominating convention in Milwaukee this week, emerging with overwhelming confidence about their chances in November. While high-profile Democrats publicly call for a change to the top of their ticket, Republicans coalesced around former President Donald Trump, who was injured in an assassination attempt on July 13.
The shift of late in Orange County’s voter registration, said Schnur, reflects polling data over the year.
“The Democratic base is simply not as enthusiastic as Republicans so it’s not surprising that registration numbers are reflecting the same trend,” he said. “Obviously, there’s no way to know whether a change at the top of the ticket will motivate Democrats to a greater degree, but it’s been pretty clear for some months now that they’ve been simply not that excited about Biden.”
Still, Democrats have a hefty advantage in Orange County.
Out of the more than 1.825 million registered voters, Democrats account for 676,851 of them, or 37%. Republicans make up 35% of registered voters, with 620,133, and no party preference is at 27.7% with 415,232 registered voters, as of July 18 data from the county registrar.
“For a county of our size … it’s a very, very small number given how many folks we have,” Orange County Democratic Party Chair Ada Briceño said of the recent changes in voter registration.
“In a presidential year, it’s sort of a normal drop,” Briceño said, noting that her party is focused on efforts to register voters at colleges and universities and events like the OC Fair.
But the momentum among Republicans is perhaps most evident in the 47th congressional district race, the open contest centered in Irvine between Democratic state Sen. Dave Min and Republican former Assemblymember Scott Baugh.
In that district, Democrats only have a 501-person lead over Republicans in terms of registered voters. There, Democrats account for 35.1% of registered voters; Republicans 35%.
In February, Democrats made up 35.4% of registered voters, and Republicans 34.6%. Republicans have gained 1,839 registered voters since then, and Democrats have lost 1,252.
Attributing Republicans’ gains in voter registration to the local party’s efforts to bring voters back to the party as well as the current news cycle, Randall Avila, executive director of the Republican Party of Orange County, said the focus is on these tight House races.
Election analysts rank the CA-47 race as leaning Democrat — Democratic Rep. Katie Porter won her re-election in 2022 with just 51.7% of the vote — and it’s a seat targeted by the campaign arms of congressional Republicans and Democrats.
A rise in registered voters there is “an incredible building block for what we hope to accomplish in November,” said Avila.
Orange County’s path to blue
Orange County, once a bastion for conservative politics and politicians, slowly trended more purple throughout the 2000s.
Democrats swept all of Orange County’s House races in 2018, just two years after the county went for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over Trump.
And then in 2019, the change happened: Democratic voters officially outnumbered Republicans for the first time since a brief period in 1978.
The switch came as Orange County continued to become more economically, ethnically and racially diverse, according to reports at the time. More Latino and Asian voters were joining the fray, and they were more likely to register Democrat. And then there were the younger voters — who accounted for 31% of Orange County’s registrations then — who tended to lean left.
The blue trend has been the case ever since.
Just ahead of the 2022 presidential election, Democrats boasted 682,547 registered voters (37.6%), Republicans had 601,852 (33.1%) and no party preference was at 427,219 (23.5%).
The county has gained 7,931 registered voters since October 2022 — and there are 18,281 more registered Republicans since then. But there are 11,987 fewer registered no party preference voters and 5,696 fewer registered Democrats.
