ALBANY – The voter enrollment gap between Democrats and Republicans in New York State is continuing to grow during the past three years since Donald Trump was Elected President. However, Chautauqua County is seeing an opposite trend locally, with more Republican enrollment taking place during the same time period.
The latest New state Board of Elections Data released on Friday shows that the state Democratic Party has an estimated 5.94 million active members, up roughly 2.7% since last year (5.78 million) and 4.8% since President Donald Trump was elected in November 2016 (5.67 million).
But locally here in Chautauqua County it’s the Republican Party that has seen a slight increase. GOP Enrollment on Nov. 1 was listed at 26,304. That’s up 2.9% from a year earlier (25,565) and a 4.2% increase since November 2016 (25,248).
As for Democratic enrollment in Chautauqua County, it is currently at 24,791. That’s a 4.1% decrease from three years ago (25,852) and a 0.4% decrease from a year ago (24,895).
As for the Republican enrollment across the state, it has slipped down to 2.63 million active members – about the same as last year but a 0.7% dip from 2016 (2.65 million).
Over a three-year period, that amounts to an additional 274,000 Democrats and 18,300 fewer Republicans in New York State, where Democrats currently hold a political trifecta controlling the governor’s office as well as Assembly and Senate. Meanwhile in Chautauqua County, Democrats had a slight enrollment edge in November 2016 by about 600 registered voters. That gap has been erased and its now the GOP that holds the enrollment edge by about 1500 registered voters.
Total voter enrollment for the county is at 76,787, down slightly from the 76,870 that were registered in November 2016.
Another way to look at Chaut. Co., 32.2% are registered Democrats, 34.2% are registered Republicans, and 33.6% are neither.