The Independent Party of Oregon will celebrate its first birthday on January 26th.
The ranks of Independents grew by more than 10,000 new members during the party's first year. This, despite the fact that the total number of voters in Oregon dropped by more than 34,000. The Oregon GOP lost 16,000 members. The Democratic Party of Oregon lost 13,000. There are 800 fewer Libertarians and 800 fewer Greens. Even non-affiliated voters decreased by 6,000. The only party affiliation to grow was the Independent Party.
Party Jan 2007 June 2007 Nov 2007 1yr change
DEMOCRATIC 766,129 754,380 753,212 - 13,200
REPUBLICAN 703,125 690,903 684,285 - 18,800
NON-AFFILIATED 438,251 432,970 431,986 - 6,200
LIBERTARIAN 15115 14,712 14,329 - 800
PAC GREENS 12086 11,692 11,221 - 800
CONSTITUTION 3194 3,132 3,000 - 200
WORKING FAMILY 1465 1,464 1,485 no change
INDEPENDENT - 2,633 9,376 + 10,745
TOTAL 1,974,957 1,945,254 1,940,889 - 34,068
Data suggests that roughly half of the party's growth came from voters who re-registered from another party and half of the party's growth came by registering new voters.
This table shows where Independent Party growth came from from Sept, 2007 to Jan, 2008.
PREV PARTY JOINED IPO PERCENT
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DEM 627 15.4%
REP 509 12.5%
LBT 32 0.8%
PAC 21 0.5%
NA 735 18.1%
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Changed Party 1924 47.3%
New Reg 2142 52.7%
Total Growth 4066
To everyone who has helped to spread the word: Thanks, and onward!
