Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has released additional data compiled by his office showing the number of Ohioans who changed their party affiliation during the 2016 Presidential Primary Election.
In Ohio, voters do not register with a political party, but are instead affiliated with a political party by casting a ballot in a partisan primary election. Voters also have the option of remaining unaffiliated by casting an “issues only” ballot.
All told, over three times as many Democrats chose to affiliate with the Republican Party as did Republicans affiliate with the Democratic Party. A total of 1,197,725 voters cast a ballot in the Democratic Primary Election, 34,867 of whom were previously affiliated with the Republican Party, representing just 2.9 percent of all Democratic ballots cast. In contrast, 1,952,684 voters cast ballots in the Republican Primary, 115,762 of whom were previously affiliated with the Democratic Party, representing 5.9 percent of the total Republican vote cast.
The Republican Party had the biggest gains in terms of newly-affiliated voters, netting 1,030,752 overall, including 60,716 first-time voters. The Democratic Party netted 747,275 newly-affiliated voters during this election cycle, including 58,139 first-time voters.
Looking only at Marion County, 2,411 unaffiliated and 142 Republican voters cast Democratic ballots. On the flip side, 4,077 unaffiliated and 721 Democrat voters cast Republican ballots.
There were also 454 new voters in Marion County who cast ballots for a political party.
“Voter turnout is driven by the enthusiasm and interest that groups and candidates can generate for their cause,” Secretary Husted said. “Nearly 1.8 million Ohioans decided to join or switch a political party, highlighting the intensity with which Ohioans are engaging this election season.”
Data released Wednesday outlines the number of voters statewide who changed their affiliation from one party to another, went from being unaffiliated to affiliated with a political party, or were previously affiliated with a party and are now unaffiliated. The data reflects a snapshot in time for the 2016 Primary Election and may not indicate future political leanings of Ohio voters.
Overall across Ohio, there were 1,623,155 previously unaffiliated voters who chose to cast a partisan ballot and are now affiliated with a major or minor political party, with 910,131 now affiliated with the Republican Party and 710,067 now affiliated with the Democratic Party.
The Republican Party was not only the most common destination for voters who were previously unaffiliated, but also for those voters previously affiliated with the Constitution, Democratic, Libertarian and Natural Laws Parties.
Prior to the 2016 Presidential Primary, 810,949 voters were affiliated with the Democratic Party, 1,267,898 were affiliated with the Republican Party and 5,473,466 were unaffiliated. As a result of voters changing their affiliation in the primary election, there are now 1,440,700 voters affiliated with the Democratic Party, 2,260,799 affiliated with the Republican Party and 3,916,669 unaffiliated voters.
You can click here to view data from each county in Ohio (file is in Excel).
A voter’s political affiliation may only be modified by requesting an issues-only ballot or the ballot of a different political party during the next-available partisan primary election cycle.
The Ohio Republican Party as a sign enthusiasm is on their side going into the fall, calling the additions to their rolls “a political windfall.”
“We have a million new Republicans to do our data work on and figure out who would and wouldn’t have been in our get-out-the-vote universe,” Chairman Matt Borges said in a statement.
But Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper said the surge in turnout shows how much Ohioans don’t want Trump to be their next president.
“People were so passionate to stop Trump they changed parties,” Pepper said, noting that Gov. John Kasich’s presidential campaign encouraged Democrats to vote against Trump. “The same people who voted in that primary will probably vote against him in November.”
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