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Recent Meadowlark articles gave a breakdown of new voters statewide and by congressional district. This article looks at new voters from 2007 and through early Sept 2008 by county. Future articles will show this breakdown by state senate and state rep districts.
Graphics below show new voter profiles by political party for the largest four counties, Johnson, Sedgwick, Shawnee, and Wyandotte. A further breakdown by state rep or state senate districts may be informative in larger counties, but county trends likely reflect local party activities in smaller counties. A PDF file shows the new voter profiles for all 105 Kansas counties.
Graphics below also show new voter registration in the new counties with the large state universities, Douglas County (KU) and Riley County (K-State).
2007. Johnson County showed a steady increase of voters by party with 4502 new Unaffiliated voters, 3560 new Republican voters, and 2581 new Democrats. Wyandotte County also showed a steady increase in voters by party but had more Democrats than Republicans. Wyandotte in 2007 had 1060 new Unaffiliated voters, 822 new Democrats, but only 292 new Republicans.
The 2007 profile for Sedgwick County was more like Johnson County, while the profile for Shawnee County was more like Wyandotte County. Like in Johnson County, Sedgwick County had the most new voters register as Unaffiliated voters (3682), but had more new Republicans (2296) than Democrats. Like in Wyandotte County, Shawnee County had more new voters register as Unaffiliated voters (849), but had more Democrats (532) than Republicans (431).
The increased slope of the new voter curve for Sedgwick County of 2007 shows some sort of new voter drive in late July 2007, while Shawnee County showed an slightly higher slope before April, possibly in anticipation of spring city elections.
2008. In all of the four largest counties, Republicans had the fewest proportion of new voters in 2008, and in Johnson and Sedgewick Counties, the Republican fraction was smaller than in 2007.
In Johnson County there Unaffiliated voters still lead in 2008 (5273), but Democrats and Republicans were roughly the same: 4205 Democrats vs. 4078 Republicans.
In Sedgwick and Shawnee Counties the number of new Unaffiliated voters was roughly the same as number of new Democrats. 5094 Us vs 4395 Ds in Sedgwick; 1584 Us vs 1552 Ds in Shawnee. In Wyandotte County, Democrats were clearly in the lead in 2008 with 1903 new Ds with only 1267 new Us and 449 new Rs.
Click here to view PDF with new voter graphics for each of the 105 Kansas counties.
[Sorry for the truncated titles in the graphics below. The titles are not truncated in the PDF above.]
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Johnson County shows more Unaffiliated voters in 2007 and 2008, but more new Rs in 2007 but slightly more new Ds in 2008.
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Sedgwick County shows more more Unaffiliated voters in 2007 and 2008, but more new Rs in 2007 but more new Ds in 2008. The increased slope near week 30 in 2007 is indicative of some sort of new voter registration drive.
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Shawnee County shows more new Ds than Rs in both 2007 and 208. The increasing gap between Ds and Rs in 2008 is indicative of a new voter drive push by the Democrats.
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Wyandotte County surprising showed more new Us than Ds in 2007 — this is surprising since Wyandotte has 45,181 Ds vs only 25,354 Us.
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Douglas County‘s profile is much like Wyandotte County’s with more Ds than Rs in both years, but with more Ds than Us in 2008. Note the push for new Ds in weeks 5-10 in 2008, likely registering University of Kansas voters.
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Riley County, home of Kansas State University, was somewhat like Johnson and Sedgwick Counties in new voter registration. Note the push for new Ds before week 10 in 2008, and the push for new Rs prior to the August 2008 primary election.
Feel free to study the new voter profiles of other Kansas counties and post comments below.
Related:
- Analysis of New Voters in Kansas by Congressional District, Kansas Meadowlark, Sept 29, 2008.
- More new Democrats than Republicans register to vote in Kansas in 2008, Kansas Meadowlark, Sept 25, 2008.
- Kansas May Have About 190,000 Phantom Voters: Could Voter Fraud in Kansas Be Relatively Easy?, Kansas Meadowlark, Jan 13, 2008.
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