April 2024 - Partisan Voter Registration Index Analysis in the Big 6 (AZ, NV, IA, FL, NC, PA)

Topic: Elections

For those of you familiar with my style of analysis, the Voter Registration by Party trend is by far the most accurate predictor of how a state will behave in presidential elections.  32 states register voters by party, meaning voters may register as Republican, Democrat, a member of any other state-recognized party, or choose no party affiliation.  Voters in states like Texas simply register to vote and pick which party primary they want to vote in – also called an “open primary” and a recipe for disaster in small states in which a little chaos can alter the result.

I call the disposition of a state by party’s registrations the Voter Registration Index (VRI).  Those familiar with the metric use language like “R+1” to describe a district, county, or state with 1% more Republicans than Democrats in it.  Here is how Voter Registration Index is calculated in a county with 10 Republicans, 8 Democrats, and 6 unaffiliated voters, for a total of 24 registered voters:

10 Republicans divided by 24 registered voters - 41.7% Republican

8 Democrats divided by 24 registered voters – 33.3% Democrat

41.7% R minus 33.3% D equals a Voter Registration Index of R+8.4%, meaning there are 8.4% more Republicans than Democrats in the county.  If this continues to climb in favor of Republicans, voters can expect presidential margins to increase for Republicans and outcomes to be more favorable in most other elections, though the index is most applicable to presidential races.

But what about all those independents?

Unaffiliated voters, or independents, tend to ride with the current of the Voter Registration Index, because they are influenced by the same factors driving the partisan shifting.  Here is an example of Voter Registration Index in Florida predicting the direction of the subsequent presidential race.

In 2004, Florida’s VRI was D+3.6%, and George W. Bush (R) won by 5.0%.

In 2008, Florida’s VRI had moved left to D+6.1%, and the state went with it, going to Barack Obama (D) by 2.8%, a swing of nearly 8 points.

In 2012, Florida’s VRI went right to D+4.6%, and Mitt Romney nearly flipped the state, losing it by just 0.9%.

In 2016, the Trump surge nudged the VRI further right to D+2.6%, and it accurately predicted the state would flip.  Trump won it by 1.2%.

In 2020, Florida almost turned Republican in VRI, winnowing down to just D+0.8%.  It predicted Trump would expand his margin, and he did, winning Florida by 3.4%, although my analysis suggests a much larger win should have been in the cards for Trump based on an analysis of all 67 counties.

VRI analysis also provides a dead giveaway that North Carolina had a fraudulently shortened Trump margin in 2020, and that Pennsylvania was not only stolen, but ripped off in a yuge way.

In 2004, Pennsylvania went to John Kerry by 2.5% with a VRI of D+6.9%.  The shift in VRI for Obama’s debut run was dramatic, putting the index at D+14.2% and signaling the biggest Democrat win since 1964 at Obama +10.3%.  As Obama alienated the white working class, Pennsylvania’s VRI inched to the right to D+13.3%, with both parties losing registrations, yet the VRI accurately predicting Obama’s margin shrinking – down to 5.4% (which was reflected in Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin).  Pennsylvania’s registrations then went into Republican overdrive for Trump, moving to D+10.5% in 2016, with 60 of 67 counties showing a GOP registration shift and 62 counties moving more Republican in voting, giving Trump the first GOP win there in 28 years.  Pennsylvania voters responded to Trump’s term by registering 21:1 in favor of Republicans, 242,000 net new GOP registrations compared to just 11,000 Democrat, dwindling the Democrat VRI down to D+7.5%, only for Biden to outperform not only Obama, but Trump’s new record set concurrently in the same election.

You can test out VRI from all elections in which the data can be found for decades and find that it is extremely accurate with a large sample size, and only occasionally bucks at the county level with a large urban population, and only then by such small numbers it can barely be perceived.

I consider there to be six key states that register voters by party that signal to me the legitimate direction of the 2024 race.

Arizona – as a stand-alone and as a gage of Hispanic voter sentiment

Nevada – see Arizona

Iowa – now that the state is reliably Republican, as a gage to the rest of the Upper Midwest (Wisconsin and Minnesota)

Florida – for its ties to the movement of other working class states in the east and the Midwest

North Carolina – for stand-alone value in a must-hold state, and also a gage for black voter sentiment

Pennsylvania – the key cog of the Midwestern Trump coalition, with direct political correlation to Michigan, which is Pennsylvania’s longstanding political cousin

Without further ado, here is how these states are lining up compared to the 2020 presidential quasi-election:

-

ARIZONA