Democrat Party Voter Registration Crisis
The Democrat party is hemorrhaging support beyond the ballot box, a new analysis shows.
Of the 30 states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections — and often by a lot.
In fact, for the first time since 2018, more new voters nationwide chose to be Republicans than Democrats last year.
That four-year swing toward the Republicans adds up to 4.5 million voters, a deep political hole that could take years for Democrats to climb out from.
All four presidential battleground states covered by the Times analysis — Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — showed significant Democratic erosion.
In North Carolina, Republicans erased roughly 95 percent of the registration advantage that Democrats held in the fall of 2020, according to state records as of this summer. In Nevada, Democrats suffered the steepest percentage-point plunge of any state but West Virginia between 2020 and 2024.
The stampede away from the Democratic Party is occurring in battleground states, the bluest states and the reddest states, too, according to a new analysis of voter registration data by The New York Times. The analysis used voter registration data compiled by L2, a nonpartisan data firm.
“I don’t want to say, ‘The death cycle of the Democratic Party,’ but there seems to be no end to this,” said Michael Pruser, who tracks voter registration closely as the director of data science for Decision Desk HQ, an election-analysis site. “There is no silver lining or cavalry coming across the hill. This is month after month, year after year.”
The New York Times
Aug. 20, 2025
By Shane GoldmacherWith Jonah Smith
Shane Goldmacher is a national political correspondent covering the rebuilding efforts of the Democratic Party. Jonah Smith is a data journalist focused on voter registration and election turnout data.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/us/politics/democratic-party-voter-registration-crisis.html
Of the 30 states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections — and often by a lot.
In fact, for the first time since 2018, more new voters nationwide chose to be Republicans than Democrats last year.
That four-year swing toward the Republicans adds up to 4.5 million voters, a deep political hole that could take years for Democrats to climb out from.
All four presidential battleground states covered by the Times analysis — Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — showed significant Democratic erosion.
In North Carolina, Republicans erased roughly 95 percent of the registration advantage that Democrats held in the fall of 2020, according to state records as of this summer. In Nevada, Democrats suffered the steepest percentage-point plunge of any state but West Virginia between 2020 and 2024.
The stampede away from the Democratic Party is occurring in battleground states, the bluest states and the reddest states, too, according to a new analysis of voter registration data by The New York Times. The analysis used voter registration data compiled by L2, a nonpartisan data firm.
“I don’t want to say, ‘The death cycle of the Democratic Party,’ but there seems to be no end to this,” said Michael Pruser, who tracks voter registration closely as the director of data science for Decision Desk HQ, an election-analysis site. “There is no silver lining or cavalry coming across the hill. This is month after month, year after year.”
The New York Times
Aug. 20, 2025
By Shane GoldmacherWith Jonah Smith
Shane Goldmacher is a national political correspondent covering the rebuilding efforts of the Democratic Party. Jonah Smith is a data journalist focused on voter registration and election turnout data.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/us/politics/democratic-party-voter-registration-crisis.html
