{"id":78394,"date":"2024-08-16T04:45:39","date_gmt":"2024-08-16T11:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redfin.com\/news\/?p=78394"},"modified":"2024-10-03T12:52:21","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T19:52:21","slug":"voter-registration-nevada-arizona-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redfin.com\/news\/voter-registration-nevada-arizona-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona and Nevada Have Lost Tens of Thousands of Registered Democrats Since the Last Presidential Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

These swing states have not turned blue despite the influx of people who have moved in from California and other blue states. And Redfin\u2019s analysis found that Democrats haven\u2019t gained ground relative to Republicans in the two southwestern swing states since Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Two <\/span>swing states<\/span><\/a> have not turned blue since the last presidential election, despite an <\/span>influx of people moving in<\/span><\/a> from <\/span>California<\/span><\/a>. Instead, Arizona has lost more than 186,000 registered Democrats since 2020; Nevada has lost 54,000.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Arizona\u2019s blue bleed was much bigger than its loss of about 74,000 registered Republicans over the past four years. Nevada gained less than 1,000 Republicans.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Changes in Voter Registration in Arizona and Nevada, 2020 to 2024<\/b><\/p>\n

Change in number of voters registered as Democrat, Republican, or Independent<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Change in share of registered voters who are Democrat, Republican, or Independent<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

2024 data is through April<\/span><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/td>\nArizona<\/b><\/td>\nNevada<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Change in number of registered\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Democrats, 2020-2024<\/b><\/td>\n

-186,119<\/span><\/p>\n

Share: 29.4% in 2024, <\/span><\/i>down<\/i><\/b> from 32.2% in 2020<\/span><\/i><\/td>\n

-54,028<\/span><\/p>\n

Share: 30.4% in 2024, <\/span><\/i>down<\/i><\/b> from 37% in 2020<\/span><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Change in number of registered\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Republicans, 2020-2024<\/b><\/td>\n

-73,796<\/span><\/p>\n

Share: 35.4% in 2024, <\/span><\/i>up<\/i><\/b> slightly from 35.2% in 2020<\/span><\/i><\/td>\n

+753<\/span><\/p>\n

Share: 28.1% in 2024, <\/span><\/i>down<\/i><\/b> from 31.7% in 2020<\/span><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Change in number of registered Independents, 2020-2024<\/b><\/td>\n+37,083<\/span><\/p>\n

Share: 35.3% in 2024, <\/span><\/i>up<\/i><\/b> from 32.6% in 2020<\/span><\/i><\/td>\n

+320,527<\/span><\/p>\n

Share: 41.5% in 2024, <\/span><\/i>up<\/i><\/b> from 31.3% in 2020<\/span><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Democrat Joe Biden won Arizona by just about <\/span>10,000<\/span><\/a> votes in 2020; he won Nevada by about <\/span>34,000<\/span><\/a> votes. In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, a similar Redfin analysis found that migrants from places like New York and Washington, D.C. <\/span>likely helped<\/span><\/a> flip Georgia blue.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFour years ago, the pandemic supercharged a trend that has reshaped the national housing market: People have been leaving expensive, coastal, liberal places like New York and California for affordable, inland, politically moderate places like Arizona and Nevada,\u201d said Redfin Senior Economist Elijah de la Campa. \u201cWhile a lot of people were simply moving to where they could afford a home, some sought a place where they fit in better politically. While this self-sorting can help explain the voter registration trends, it\u2019s more likely that a lot of Arizonans and Nevadans have been feeling very disillusioned by their political choices.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Arizona has added about 37,000 voters registered with a party other than Democrat or Republican\u2014referred to as \u201cIndependent\u201d throughout the rest of this report\u2014since the 2020 election. That brings Arizona\u2019s share of registered Independents to 35.3% of all registered voters, on par with the 35.4% who are Republicans; just under 30% are Democrats. Research shows that those Independent voters may cancel each other out: <\/span>About half<\/span><\/a> of Independent voters tend to lean Democrat, and half lean Republican, according to the Pew Research Center.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevada, meanwhile, has added hundreds of thousands of Independent voters. That brings Nevada to a political division with far more Independent voters than Democrats or Republicans; nearly 42% of registered voters identify as Independent, 30.4% are Democrats and 28.1% are Republicans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2024 voter registration data reported above goes through April.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Democratic candidate changed in July. But Democratic voter registrations didn\u2019t gain ground relative to Republican registrations.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

The most recent voter registration data available for Arizona and Nevada shows that the trends observed in April continued after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee in mid-July when Biden dropped out, and the <\/span>official nominee<\/span><\/a> in early August. The Redfin data team hypothesized that analyzing voter registration data through July would show Kamala Harris\u2019 entrance brightened the voter-registration picture for Democrats in Arizona and Nevada. But that hasn\u2019t happened, at least not through the end of July.<\/span><\/p>\n

While both states gained roughly 3,000 registered Democrats from April to July, they gained far more Republican and Independent registered voters. In fact, the <\/span>share<\/span><\/i> of voters registered as Democrats declined<\/span> marginally from April to July,\u00a0 from 29.4% to 29.1% in Arizona and from 30.4% to 30.1% in Nevada. The share of registered Republican voters in each state has essentially remained flat over the same time period, while the share of Independent voters has increased slightly from 35.3% to 35.5% in Arizona and 41.5% to 41.9% in Nevada.<\/span><\/p>\n

The latest election polls show a tight race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in both <\/span>Arizona<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Nevada<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reasons for voter registration changes in Arizona and Nevada: A little political self-sorting, a lot of disillusionment with both major parties<\/b><\/p>\n

Here are some factors in the voter registration changes in Arizona and Nevada:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

1. Political self-sorting<\/b><\/p>\n

California lost a net <\/span>341,866<\/span><\/a> residents to other states in 2022 (the most recent year for which this data, from the U.S. Census, is available), more than any other state. Of the residents who left California, 48,836 moved to Nevada and 74,157 moved to Arizona. Redfin\u2019s <\/span>migration data<\/span><\/a> shows a similar trend. Las Vegas is the 10th-most popular destination for U.S. homebuyers moving from one metro area to another, with movers most commonly coming from Los Angeles and San Francisco. Phoenix is the third-most popular destination for homebuyers, with people most commonly moving in from Los Angeles and Seattle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But despite gaining tens of thousands of new residents from California, Arizona and Nevada did not see a blue wave. Rather, their populations of Independents surged. This leads us to believe that the people who moved from California were moderate or conservative voters seeking a place they could better afford, and where they fit in better politically.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The typical home in both Las Vegas and Phoenix, for instance, costs about $450,000, compared to $925,000 in Los Angeles. Rent prices are also much lower in Nevada and Arizona: The median asking rent in both Las Vegas and Phoenix is just over <\/span>$1,500<\/span><\/a>, compared to nearly $2,800 in Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are some additional data points that support that theory:<\/span><\/p>\n