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The nation’s hard-fought presidential contests have brought more than 850,000 new voters onto California’s registration rolls, dwarfing numbers seen in 2008 and 2012, according to figures from the state’s 58 counties.
With the voter registration deadline for the June 7 primary coming up, those numbers are guaranteed to increase.
“We’re looking at a larger voter growth than ever seen before a primary,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., which compiled the registration data. “It’s double the preprimary growth in 2012.”
Not surprisingly, the newly registered voters are overwhelmingly young people, with 37 percent under 25 and 64 percent 35 or younger. Many of the older voters are probably new citizens or people who have moved to California from other states.
Just under 29 percent of those new voters are Latino, Mitchell said, more than double the percentage in 2012.
Along with those new voters, almost 600,000 other Californians have re-registered since Jan. 1, usually because they changed their name, address or party. Those 1.45 million new or updated registrations as of May 1 could grow to 2 million by the registration deadline.
The registration figures are bad news for the state’s Republicans, who already have seen their numbers falling in California. Nearly half the new voters, 48.5 percent, registered as Democrats, compared with the 16.7 percent who registered as Republicans and the 34.8 percent who either declined to state a party preference or registered with a minor party.
The percentage of new Republicans is far below the party’s 27.5 percent statewide registration, which could hurt GOP candidates both in the fall and in the future.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-sees-flood-of-new-voters-spurred-by-7754295.php
