Do you believe this? 20K Mass. and 42K Florida Democratic change reg. to Republican?

[Todays_Illusion]

Has anyone else seen these stories, do you think they are true or they cover stories for election theft?

20,000 Massachusetts Democrats switch parties before Super Tuesday


http://thegreatstateofdebate.yuku.com/topic/10565/Nearly-20000-Mass-voters-quit-Democratic-party


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/29/20000-massachusetts-democrats-switch-parties-before-super-tuesday.html?intcmp=hppop

Trump Phenomenon: 42,000 Florida Voters Flee Democratic Party, Republicans Gain 37,000

In what many political analysts are calling the 'Donald Trump Phenomenon,' over 42,000 Florida voters have left the Democratic Party in the last six months leading up to the deadline to register to vote in the Florida Presidential Preference Primary, according to figures released by the Florida Division of Elections.


http://government.brevardtimes.com/2016/03/trump-phenomenon-42000-florida-voters.html

[arcane1]

1. I'm not clicking on a fuckgin Fox link to find out, but there could be many reasons.

Some might want to vote in the repub primary against Trump.

Some might simply agree with the republicans. We have no shortage of "D"emocrats on this very site that advocate conservative, pro-corporate policies.

[Todays_Illusion]

3. The link about the Flordia Democratic is not from Fox.

[Hortensis]

17. Yes, it happens every election. Many people never

bothered in all these years to change affiliation, then something gives them the urge, like voting for Trump to kick some people in the teeth or voting against Trump because he promises to kick people in the teeth.

There are virtually no liberals who weren't offended out of the GOP long ago, but enclaves of conservatives in the Democratic Party are slower to move apparently. It doesn't mean anything in practical terms -- they've been voting right for a long time.

Same for indies, btw. Most are pretences, posturing as too principled for party politics, but actually with strong attachment to one party or another.

[TheBlackAdder]

21. The Democratic Party lost its way, people are now switching to self-affecting survival mode! nt

[Hortensis]

22. The Democratic Party is where it was in the 1970s.

Any people switching to "survival mode" likely find the party is too liberal for them. The more conservative, or extreme, btw, as we know well here on DU, the more influenced they are by right-wing slurs on our party. Democrats are bad. Liberals are bad. Government is bad.

[TheBlackAdder]

24. Yes, the 1970's when there wasn't a President until Carter, then decimated by the Moral Majority.

.


The Democratic Party no longer offers any promise of community, so people are looking out for themselves.


Why should people invest in bogus lip service of how things will be when most of their representatives are owned by corporations and sell-out to the highest bidder? People are seeing their voice slowly tampered by ever-shifting democrats, who lean more to the right each and every day. Those who start to make money get to the point where it's like "Why effing bother?" and move to their own needs.

I'm up there in income and I am struggling to fight for people who don't seem interested in saving themselves. They bitch and bitch every day how things suck, but apparently it doesn't suck enough to continue with the same practices. I'm at the point where I will vote Democrat, no matter what, but my family will do well under either party. If people want to continue with things the way they are, civil and women's rights will disolve anyway in the next decade or so, as that's the trend.


.

[Todays_Illusion]

23. I have never seen numbers like that reported before and they are not form mainstream sites?

though I confess, I don't read or listen to much that is called news.

[Hortensis]

25. 150,000,000 registered voters, Today's, with

over 4,000,000 of them in Massachusetts (just looked). I like context and just did the math: 20k is 0.5% of the total voters. Hard to see how that compares specifically to the number of "Democrats" rumored to be rejected in all this because many dem voters like to call themselves independent while voting reliably Democrat.

So, 0.5% of the entire voters of a liberal state left the Democratic Party, with reportedly something like 2500-3500 (??) leaving to vote for Trump. I'm sure that number is much higher in southern states with large numbers of conservative Democrats.

Fwiw, precincts are easy to remember: Nearly 200,000 in the U.S., average precinct size 1000+ registered voters.

[JackRiddler]

2. Not particularly.

At least, not the "switching to Trump" interpretation of what may be happening.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Yes, you keep under estimating trumpism at your peril

[Katashi_itto]

10. Revolution is coming. We might have better chance under Bernie.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. This is a change election, and these people are blind to that fact

Ok goodie speaking of Trump, he just started the does not have energy or stamina line against HRC... not that I am surprised... ah that is straight from Mussolini

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

39. It's the idiocracy revolution

Came to see a revolution and the wrong one showed up.

[nichomachus]

31. I wouldn't call it Trumpism

What I see and hear is that people are sick of "business as usual." They don't want the same political retreads that are shoved down their throats every election cycle.

Trump is just the unwitting beneficiary of that. He was in the right place at the right time.

We're seeing the same thing on the Democratic side with Bernie. Bernie is far-and-away better than Trump, but he represents the opposite of "business as usual." Many people want that.

The difference between the two parties is that the GOP didn't have anyone in place to counter Trump. The whole filed was a pathetic bunch of losers.

However, the Dems had the wealthy, powerful, ruthless Clinton Machine and Wall Street to counter Bernie. It's amazing that Bernie has made the inroads he has against the formidable forces arrayed against him. Had Mrs. Clinton not been in the race, Bernie would be polling now at about 98 percent. But Mrs. Clinton has been running for president, in one form or another, since 2000. Her appeal to identity politics -- vote for me because I'm a woman -- has engaged a lot of people. Given her record and her lack of real accomplishments, if she were a man, she would be out of the running already.

[radical noodle]

5. There has been talk of some who change to vote against Trump

Because he's scary. There was a university professor the other day who was begging people to change parties to vote against Trump. Some think he's the new Hitler. The primaries can be freaky like that. My mother always voted in the primary of the opposing party to try to get someone she thought her party of choice could beat.

[Kip Humphrey]

6. Do you think the Dem elites are paying attention? They had better do so!

[HooptieWagon]

7. IDK if true, and if so it may not be for Trump.

It could very well be Latinos switching parties to vote for Rubio.
In any case, it's only 1% of registered Democrats (25% of registered voters). Bigger problem is the over 40% of registered NPA voters. Most would vote for Sanders...most would vote against Hillary. They aren't permitted to vote in either party's primary.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

8. I wouldn't presume they're doing it because they want Trump to be president.

Like many, I crossed over in the last Illinois primaries so I could vote against Rauner.

[think]

9. Wonder how that happened?

How much does Donald Trump dominate TV news coverage? This much

by Brian Stelter and Ken Olshansky @CNNMoney
December 6, 2015: 4:53 PM ET

Donald Trump's Republican campaign for president has received more nightly news attention than all the Democratic campaigns combined, according to a new data analysis.

~snip~

Between January and November, according to his data, Trump's campaign was covered for 234 minutes on the three newscasts. Jeb Bush's campaign was covered for 56 minutes; Ben Carson's, for 54.

The campaign for the front-runner on the other side of the aisle, Hillary Clinton, was covered for 113 minutes. (Coverage of Clinton controversies dating to her time as Secretary of State was counted separately, and totaled an additional 117 minutes, more than her campaign proper.)

~Snip~

He said Cruz and the #2 candidate on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders, have been "noticeably under-covered," with Sanders getting 10 minutes of coverage on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news.

Source:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/06/media/donald-trump-nightly-news-coverage/

[Samantha]

11. I read a couple of days ago about 20,000 Dems changed their registration in MA this year

Something like 3,500 switched to the Republican party, and the rest registered as Independents. I have not heard anything about the Friday exit.

Sam

[Todays_Illusion]

13. I am skeptical, and wonder why the story?

[Samantha]

44. Here you go -- read the entire article -- it is unbelievable

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/2016/02/amid_trump_surge_nearly_20000_mass_voters_quit_democratic_party

Sam

[Arazi]

12. He's always underestimated here. Out in real life, you'd see and hear his popularity

if HRC is the Dem candidate, it will be President Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States

[littlebit]

14. Maybe

Back in 2012 I change mine from dem to undeclared so I could vote in the republican primary in NC. All the dems running were running unopposed so I voted against all the republican incumbents.

[onenote]

16. Maybe some non-faux facts will be helpful

First, 20,000 Massachusetts Democrats have not changed their registration to Republican. 3500 have. That's two-tenths of one percent of all registered Democrats in Massachusetts. In fact, from February 2015 to February 2016, the number of registered Democrats has increased by over 61,000 (during that same period, the number of registered repubs increased by less that 22,500).

http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleenr/enridx.htm

Second, while 16,500 Democrats switched to independent ("unenrolled&quot that is consistent with a gradual increase in the numbers of voters choosing not to register with a particular party. Those 16,500 voters again represent less than 1 percent of the total number of independent voters.

As to why these 3500 voters switched their Democratic registration to repub (even as nearly 65,000 others were joining the ranks of registered Democrats), that's just speculation. Was it to vote for Trump? For some, maybe most - could be. But some certainly switched to so they could vote against Trump in the repub primary. Keep in mind that while there are fewer than 500,000 registered repubs in Massachusetts, repub candidates frequently get more than 1,000,000 votes. Most of those are probably from repub leaning "independents" but some number are almost certainly from voters who are registered as Democrats but long ago abandoned the Democratic party but only got around to changing registration because this year's repub race motivated them to participate.

I don't have numbers for Florida, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were along the same lines.

[SunSeeker]

20. Thank you for bringing some facts to this silly story, onenote.

[MrMickeysMom]

18. I DO believe it during this primary ...

There are LOTS and LOTS of small towns where conservatives would be fed up and change to vote for Drumpf to lobby their displeasure with the way the Republicans brought all this on.

It's happened in other states, too. Low information voters in Main Street/Elmer Gantry-ville = Oh FUCK.

[Ferd Berfel]

19. If Hillary is the nom, it won't matter anyway

she will loose the GE.

[thereismore]

26. Actually, no. I don't believe it. I could never do that myself. nt

[thereismore]

27. Is this a Trump effect or a Hillary effect? Anyone? nt

[onenote]

29. More of a continuation of a long term trend.

See posts 16 and 28.

[thereismore]

32. Thank you, that is enlightening. nt

[Todays_Illusion]

34. It shows the DNC is doing nothing about voter registration, low turn out helps conservatives

and that includes HC.

[onenote]

28. Florida facts

Yes, from Aug 2015 to January 2016, the number of register Democrats declined (by 42K) and the number of registered repubs increased by around 37,000. Roughly 1 percent changes.

But a couple of other facts. In January 2016, the number of new Democratic registrations was 14,000. The number of new repub registrations was half that (around 7000). Also, the trend line of growing repub registration and declining Democratic registration in Florida is not something that just started with Trump. In 1995, Democrats made up 49 percent of registered Florida voters compared to 42 percent repubs. By December 2010, Democrats made up only 41 percent of registered Florida voters and repubs made up 36 percent. By December 2013, the split was 39 percent for Democrats and 35 percent for repubs. Today, its 38/35.

[Tony_FLADEM]

30. I have been keeping track on the voter registration numbers in Florida

From the beginning of the year up until 1/31 both parties registered relatively the same number of voters. The Republicans a little more.

Then from 2/1 until 2/29 the Republicans registered about 75,000 new voters and the Democrats increased their numbers by about 42,000 voters over the same period.


12/31/2015 Republican 4,193,586 Democrat 4,520,265

1/31/2016 Republican: 4,209,039 Democrat: 4,534,845

2/26/2016 Republican: 4,281,582 Democrat: 4,574,264

2/29/2016 Republican: 4,284,600 Democrat: 4,576,036

So this might be accurate unfortunately.

[Punkingal]

33. I believe it...I am going to leave the Democratic party.

Not to vote for Trump, but because they left me.

[berni_mccoy]

35. Yes it's believable. I've been canvassing and phone banking

The wide world outside of DU is not like DU. These people are pissed and they don't trust Hillary.

[onenote]

38. So why aren't they sticking around and supporting Bernie?

[Marr]

41. Because they're conservative Democrats/moderates.

They abandon the party if it doesn't give them exactly what they want.

They'd vote for a conservative Dem, but not Hillary.

[Marr]

36. Hillary is a very polarizing figure.

I'm not surprised at this at all. The party establishment is going to lose thing by cramming such a despised candidate through the primaries.

[onenote]

37. How does it reflect on Clinton any more than Sanders?

Leaving aside the fact that there has been a net gain of over 61,000 registered Democrats and only 22,000 repubs and the fact that are, without doubt, thousands upon thousands of once upon a time registered Democrats that long ago stopped supporting Democratic candidates of any stripe. Which is one of the reasons that a state with only 400,000+ registered repubs has been producing vote totals for repub candidates of over 1 million for more than a decade.

Some times its better to rely on facts than emotions.

[Marr]

40. Because she's been promoted as the 'inevitable' candidate.

Most news outlets have framed the thing like she'd already won since before she even announced-- you know that.

Hillary is synonymous with "Democrats 2016" for most people-- especially conservative Democrats.

[amborin]

42. if you speak to people IRL, even in my solidly blue area, people want change; they don't want an

establishment candidate; We can win in win in November with Bernie, but not with Hillary;

[Cordy]

43. I suspose they could check for election fraud

I guess they could take a sample of registered Dems and have them check to see if there status has been changed, to know if their registrations were switched.