Percentage of Registered Democrats Falls

The Democratic Party’s share of registered voters has dropped by more than two percentage points during the past four years, while the percentage of Republicans increased slightly in the same period, Secretary of State March Fong Eu announced Wednesday.

A breakdown of eligible voters by political party on Dec. 31 showed Democrats comprised 48.5% and Republicans 39.14%, compared with 50.7% Democrats and 38.4% Republicans on Jan. 5 of 1988, the last presidential election year.

A spokeswoman for Eu, Melissa Warren, said the most recent Democratic drop and GOP increase continues a trend of more than a decade.

Voter registration figures on Jan. 2 for the 1980 presidential election year showed 55.6% Democrats and 33.8% Republicans.

“There has been a continuing shift in the political winds,” Warren said. “There also is a purge (from the rolls) of some non-voters every year.”

She said the Democratic drop couldn’t be attributed in any significant way to the recent qualification of the new Green Party, which has 100,897 members, some of whom switched from the Democratic Party.

“The shift began happening long before the Greens started,” Warren said.

Statewide, the percentage of registered voters on Dec. 31 dropped to 63.72% from 67.25% last October, mostly because of the year-end purges--eliminating voters who died or moved away--conducted by the counties.

In real numbers, there are 13,062,664 registered voters out of 20,502,145 eligible Californians--a decrease of 48,882 since last fall, according to Eu.

Total statewide voter registration was 12,313,848 in 1988 and 10,121,907 in 1980, respectively.

San Francisco retained its long-held position as the county with the highest percentage of registered Democrats, with 60.8%, and Orange continued to be the state’s most Republican county with a 55.59% GOP total.

The Democratic registration for San Francisco was 64.6% in 1988 and 62.8% in 1980. Republican registration for Orange County was 54.5% in 1988 and 44.4% in 1980, both No. 1 in the state.