‘No Party’ voters in La. increasing

• By MARSHA SHULER
• Capital news bureau
• Published: Oct 27, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

With the Nov. 4 election approaching, there are nearly 140,000 fewer registered Democrats in Louisiana than at the beginning of the decade.

Voters aligning with the Republican Party increased since 2000 but not nearly as much as those of other parties, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Over the same years, more black voters joined the Democratic Party — from 670,337 in 2000 to 721,814 as of Oct. 6, when the voter rolls closed for the Nov. 4 election. Meanwhile, 200,000 white voters left the Democratic Party during the same time period — from 977,066 to 774,074, according to the secretary of state’s records.

Southern University political scientist Albert Samuels said Louisiana’s change in Democratic Party demographics reflects what happened in much of the rest of the South, where conservatives left what three decades ago was the only viable political party in the region.

“It used to be that people were conservative and remained Democrats because the Republican Party was so small, but as the Republican Party grows, those conservative Democrats don’t need to keep the ‘D,’ ” Samuels said.

“The fastest-growing group right now is ‘No Party.’ You would have thought it would be Republicans, but that hasn’t happened,” Samuels said.

Kirby Goidel, an LSU political science professor, said the movement away from the Democratic Party, particularly among white conservatives, is long running.

“As Democrats, you have to be worried. As Republicans, you have to be looking at some level of excitement. But still the candidates are driving the process,” Goidel said.

Louisiana has about 2.9 million eligible voters for the Nov. 4 elections. The ballot has competitive races for the Baton Rouge-based 6th U.S. Congressional seat and for the U.S. Senate. Also, the presidential election is on the federal ballot.

Louisiana’s voter registration remains majority Democrat with 1.53 million of the voters, while Republicans total about 740,000 and Other Party or No Party voters about 650,000.

Since 2000, the Republican numbers have jumped 123,377 — mostly white voters. The party also gained other race voters while losing black registrants.

But “Other Party” or “No Party” gained 144,824 registrants since the decade began — more than 96,000 of them are white voters. More black voters and other race voters signed up to the “Other Party” category than they did for the Republican Party.

Louisiana Democratic Party Chairman Chris Whittington blamed the displacement of voters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The situation could be worse if there had not been a major voter registration drive in advance of the upcoming election, he said.