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Democratic party losing members in SLO County

November 2, 2014

VoteThe number of voters in San Luis Obispo County registered Democratic has fallen over the past six years while Republicans hold their own and Independents increase in numbers. [Tribune]

Between 2008 and 2014, the number of Democrats in the county shrunk nearly 3 percentage points to 33 percent. During the same time, Republican voters fell by 0.6 percent to 39.4 percent and declined to state increased by 3 percentage points to 21.3 percent.

There are 150,139 registered voters in San Luis Obispo County. Of those, about 95,000 use mail in ballots of which about 39,200 have been returned.

On an average, about 60 to 70 percent of registered voters either mail in their ballots or turn out at the polls.


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Curious that CCN chose this particular Tribune article to link to, when another article, written by Dan Walters and published on September 28, 2014, that explains how the Republican Party is losing registered voters by large numbers, and most of them are embracing a listing as an Independent. HIs article also explains how the Democratic Party isn’t gaining any of those voters, and really isn’t losing voters either, but staying relatively at the same percentage of population.


San Luis Obispo is an anomaly of most California coastal counties, since most of them are less conservative than our inland counties, especially the Central Valley that is very conservative.It has been said many times, at many different times, that the political pendulum swings back and forth, from right to left, and back again from left to right; in my 40 or so years here in San Luis Obispo though, I was always very aware of how conservative most of San Luis county actually is. To me it seems that the city of San Luis Obispo is kind of like an island of somewhat liberal thinking as opposed to the rest of the county, and it has been that way for a long time.


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Link here to that article written by Mr. Walters if you want to read it for yourself.


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The trend towards independent voters is real and both parties are losing voters. I don’t think left or right tendencies are changing as much as folks are tired of the two-parties and like myself, don’t feel they represent citizens who vote for them.


It would be appear that little SLO County may be fronting a trend, but where that takes us is still unknown. We would go to the polls to vote for real change, but there aren’t strong third parties to vote for, so you throw away your vote on a D or R.


Libertarian sentiment is growing but the Libertarian Party usually has such off the wall characters, it feels like you’re just voting for wacky over Establishment.


When independents outnumber both parties combined, that’s when a change away from the Establishment will occur.


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Well put. Disgust with both major parties is driving voters away from identification with them.


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This election will be interesting. If you read the posts on this web site or even on Yahoo, you sense a shift in opinion towards conservatism (what ever that means). Of course, there are still sites like the Huffington Post or the Santa Barbara Independent where the commenters are decidedly liberal. The question is whether the comment sections on web sites actually represent how the voters will vote? The litmus tests will be whether Capps wins and Caren Ray wins. If they do, then I don’t think there was a shift in voter tendencies as much as was predicted. At least not in our congressional district.


As far as Measure P in Santa Barbara goes, that one directly affects me as I work in for the Oil and Gas industry. I hope it doesn’t pass but I wouldn’t be too surprised if it does. Everyone wants a clean environment and Measure P can easily confuse the voters. First, I think the average voter is suspicious of the oil industry. Second, Measure P won’t shut down gas stations or immediately affect the price of gas so the average voter doesn’t see how if Measure P passes they will be adversely affected. Hypocrisy is always fun to point out. Did you know you can actually get a “Yes On Measure P” bumper sticker? If the bumper sticker isn’t on a Tesla, you are a hypocrite.


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Oh, one last thing I forgot to include. No matter what your affiliation, GET OUT AND VOTE! Our country wins as a team and voting is being part of the team.


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The most cliched statement of all time is, it doesn’t matter who you vote for, just make sure to votr. Isn’t that how a man with 0 qualifications, including never having had a job in his life, was elected twice to the presidency?


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Amen to that! Great post!


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Great post! Thank you.


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He was re-elected the second time. His daddy called the Supreme Court after the first election in 2000.


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I totally disagree. The only people who should get out and vote are true conservatives. EVERYBODY else stay home!


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Today’s ‘true conservatives’ would throw out Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Everett Dirksen; and take in Joe McCarthy, Lester Maddox, and Strom Thurmond.


I’ll take the former…you can have the morons and racists.


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If you own a Tesla, you ARE a hypocrite, period. You know how much oil and natural resources it takes to build one of those things?


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Anyone that can afford a Tesla is rich enough to not care who votes or who is elected.


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If I could be King of the United States for one day, I would mandate that all elections be publicly funded, that there is a uniform standard ballot in every county across the country, that Instant Runoff Voting be in place on all ballots, that voting was done on paper ballots to eliminate any potential tampering with electronic voting, that felons who have served their time be allowed to register to vote again, and that there would be no restrictive voter registration laws like in Texas where a student ID card isn’t good enough identification to be allowed to vote, but a Concealed Carry Weapons permit is allowed as an identification to vote. I would also eliminate all laws pertaining to term limits for any office above county supervisors; the best “term limit” is an election with real choices for the voters.


When elected politicians don’t have to spend half of each working day fundraising to get reelected, when the money is taken out of the equation, we could have elected officials actually working for us, the voters instead of the fat cats that fund their elections. When IRV voting is implemented, independent candidates can actually get votes because the voters don’t feel that they are “throwing away” their votes if they don’t vote for the candidate of one of the two main parties closest to their political views.


What stops the push for taking the money out of politics is the rich and powerful, they like being able to have politicians in their back pocket. What stops IRV voting is both the Democratic and Republican parties; you know it has to be a great thing when both parties are fearful of it. My “utopian” picture of politics? No parties at all, just candidates who answer to the voters; if they don’t represent what the voters want, then the voters can elect someone new in the next election.


It won’t happen anytime soon though, those in power never want to share, those who control the political agenda don’t want to see anything anywhere near “equal” for the voters; no, those in charge want it to stay that way, now and forever.


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I would only add that we should have a NONE OF THE ABOVE and if that gets more votes, different people must run.


Let the lame party politicians compete against NONE OF THE ABOVE and see how quickly politics changes.


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Democrats are seeing up stupid on a platter.


http://chicksontheright.com/posts/item/26647-an-open-letter-to-the-gop


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Some would say that those that fled are racist. I say they are too embarrassed to be affiliated with President Obama and his failed agenda.


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Naw…the racists are firmly entrenched in the Republican tent.

Most of the new ‘independents’ are dissatisfied that Democrats are not liberal enough !


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