Nearly 5,000 San Diegans Left The Republican Party In January

Speaker 1: 00:00 Now that the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump is over big questions remain about the future direction of the Republican party. But some local Republicans seem to have already made their decision numbers from the San Diego County registrar's office reported by the times of San Diego show that last month, more than 4,700 San Diego Republicans left the GOP and switched party registration. There's no clear answer yet, but there's a lot of speculation that the Capitol insurrection was a primary motivation for the shift. I spoke with reporter Ken stone with the times of San Diego. Here's that interview, the GOP has been losing ground in San Diego County for several years. So is this drop bigger than usual? Speaker 2: 00:47 Uh, certainly, uh, the, the statistics we can glean from the registered voters offices, we can tell that a typical drop in registration in the January following a major biannual election is about 2,600 in the, in the past four or five, uh, elections. So what we're seeing is an anomaly, uh, with 47 more than 4,700 Republicans dropping that status in the January of this year. It's, uh, almost twice as many as in the previous cycles. Speaker 1: 01:20 Have you been able to find out if this drop is specifically because of the January 6th insurrection? Speaker 2: 01:28 No, that's, that's the assumption. Uh, it's a partisan assumption in the sense because the Democrats would say, Oh, of course it's a direct result of the, uh, of the riots and the, and the capital raid Republicans who I've talked to say, well, you know, sometimes our Republicans vote for Democrats. Sometimes Democrats vote for Republicans and a shift in party. Affiliation is not that significant. You can talk to a curl Luna. Who's the long time, a political observer and political scientist, uh, San Diego Mesa college. And he is a little surprised that the 4,700 number, because he thinks it should be a much larger with, uh, more than four, 540,000 registered Republicans in San Diego County to have less than 1% of them change. Their parties is not a significant number, but, uh, Cal matters the, with Sacramento new service, uh, reported that 33,000 Republicans dropped out of the party since January six. And that seems, uh, an impressive number two, but also keep in mind, it's about a half a percent of the 4 million Republicans registered in California. Speaker 1: 02:40 No, it's one thing to say to yourself. Ah, I'm never going to vote for a particular party again, it's another to actually change your registration. How and why would a person go about doing that? Speaker 2: 02:51 I, I went to this SD boat.com, which is the San Diego County register voters office website. And it will take you to the California secretary of state's website, where you can click on a link and you have the option of changing your registration. Basically you don't, you don't inform them. I'm dropping out of the party. What you do is re register. Sometimes the DMV allows you to do that. You can do it through the mail. You can contact, if you can call a phone number and get a, uh, a registration form, basically reregistered Speaker 1: 03:25 And are most of these formerly GOP voters becoming Democrats? Speaker 2: 03:29 No, uh, about, uh, uh, less than a quarter have become Democrats in the County, uh, about two thirds are becoming what they call, not no party preference, also known as declined to state and have signed up with the American independent party, which many people, uh, take to be a mistake because the American independent party, which was partly founded by George Wallace in the late sixties, started out as a segregationist, uh, sympathetic party, uh, and no longer is, but it's still a far right party that apparently many people confuse with being an independent. So they figure, Oh, American independent party, I guess that's what I am. And they stay Connly, uh, sign up for that. Uh, the Los Angeles times in 2016, uh, did a story, uh, showing that most of the people who sign up for American independent party didn't know it was a party. They thought it was just a generic identifier. Speaker 1: 04:27 I see. Are there implications in this swing for San Diego, still largely Republican areas? Like let's say the 50th district, Speaker 2: 04:36 The conservative registration in the 50th is still a far ahead of the democratic registration and who knows what a redistricting will do come. Uh, you know, the next year, couple of years, I see that, uh, Mar ajar who ran twice in that district is still, uh, staying active on social media, perhaps to keep his, uh, his name in the, in play for another try at the, in that district. But most, most political pundits see that district as solidly Republican. And, uh, don't see it flip even with never Trump style Republicans, uh, dropping out Speaker 1: 05:15 Now a Republican consultant. You spoke with told you the problem as he sees it is there isn't really one Republican party anymore, but competing factions, tell us about that. Speaker 2: 05:29 It's well known that the Republican party has become a Trump centric party and the people who would consider themselves traditional Republicans of the past are feeling, uh, edited out. I think that there will be a shift to a more conservative Republican party when, uh, people who agenda generally like being on the winning side, find that joining the Trump Republican party results in, uh, in losses, I have to recall that, uh, about four or five years ago, I attended a, uh, an Alec meeting, which was a, a Republican, uh, meeting of a national group that advocates for conservative, uh, legislation and, uh, famous upholster and infrequent stood in front of a, of a large ballroom full of Republicans. And, and they asked people, anybody here for Donald Trump, not a single person raised their hand. And this is in a, you know, conservative meeting hall. Uh, of course all of them now would probably say, Oh, of course, uh, I supported Trump, but you know, party membership can be fickle. And I have a feeling that there can still be a flip. Speaker 1: 06:39 I've been speaking with a reporter, Ken stone with the times of San Diego. Ken. Thanks a lot. Thank you.