Thursday, 4:30 PM
GOP ranks dropped by 31,000 since state elected Romney
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Correspondent
The number of registered Republicans in Massachusetts has fallen by more than 31,000 since the state elected Governor Mitt Romney four years ago, dropping the GOP's already scant numbers in the heavily Democratic state to its lowest point in six years, according to a count released today of voters eligible to cast ballots in Tuesday's election.
As the party struggles to hold its 16-year monopoly on governor's office with its candidate flagging in most polls, GOP voting rolls dipped by about 6 percent in the last four years. That means Republicans now make up 12.5 percent of the state's voters, or 498,962, according to the data released by the Secretary of State's office. When the state elected Romney, a Republican, in 2002, the GOP made up 13.4 percent of the electorate.
"The last 10 years it's as if the Republican Party has been evaporating in this state," said Todd Domke, a Republican analyst who has worked with the national party. "But it's less a matter of registration than fewer candidates, fewer office holders, fewer leaders and no strategy to reverse the trend. That's what's disturbing."
Democrats, by contrast, gained about 30,000 new faces in the last four years, inflating their numbers by 2 percent, according to the new registration data. In the seven weeks since the primary, the party added 19,000 members, giving it almost 37 percent of the state's registered voters, or 1,472,707.
Brian Dodge, executive director of the state Republican Party, said that the Democratic rolls benefited from a competitive primary. The GOP, Dodge said, has a much larger base than is evident from party registration and has dedicated resources to unenrolled voters who share the Republican perspective.
"Unenrolled doesn't mean undecided," said Dodge, who defended this year's slate of GOP candidates. "I would describe [many of the unenrolled] as closet Republicans."
The largest registration jump since the since the September primary belongs to voters who do not belong to a political party. The number of unenrolled increased by almost 39,000 since the primary to 1.9 million, or almost 50 percent of registered voters in Massachusetts.
The fluctuation in registration numbers can be explained by new voters, voters changing parties, voters switching to unrolled status, people dying or residents moving out of state, said Brian McNiff, a spokesman for the Secretary of State's office. The data released today did not include numbers for other political parties, including Green-Rainbow and Libertarian, which should be available on Friday.
Overall voter registration was up by 17,854 since 2002, the last time there was a gubernatorial election. The total number of 3,990,505 is down from 2004, however, when a presidential election drew almost 4.1 million registered voters in Massachusetts.
