COLUMBUS – If the party affiliations of the Ohio voters who turned out for the May 8 primary election are any indication, the state is still purple, but it is a redder shade of purple.
A report released Thursday by the office of Secretary of State Jon Husted on voters who switched or declared party affiliations during the primary indicates that, while Democrats picked up approximately 165,000 voters, they are still outnumbered by Republicans by about a half million voters.
According to Husted’s data, the number of voters who declared themselves Republican grew from 1.983 million in November to 2.043 million while the number of Democrats increased from 1.271 million to 1.436 million.
President Donald Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election in Ohio with 2.8 million votes to Clinton’s 2.4.
Voters in Ohio do not register with a political party, but are affiliated with a party by casting a ballot in a partisan primary election. They have the option of remaining unaffiliated by casting an “issues only” ballot.
Of the 7.961 million registered voters in Ohio, more than half are unaffiliated while the remainder – about 3.5 million — are affiliated with a political party, Husted’s office said.
A little over a half million voters decided to join or switch a party by casting a partisan ballot, including 430,111 previously unaffiliated voters, almost 19,000 of whom were first-time voters, according to the report.
Nearly 62,000 voters who had previously affiliated themselves with the Republican Party switched to the Democratic Party in May, compared with 27,774 former Democrats who switched to the GOP.
The first off-year election following the election of a new president often favors the opposing party.
The Democrats snatched up the majority of the previously unaffiliated voters, including first-timers, and attracted a total of about 50,000 more party-switching and unaffiliated voters than did the GOP.
The general election in Ohio is Nov. 6. The deadline to register is Oct. 9.