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Political Party Trends in Kansas

By   /   September 24, 2010  /   3 Comments

Earlier this week the blog Dome on the Range announced Kansas voters leaving the Republican Party.  The analysis in the article showed Kansas voter registration data from June 2007 and June 2010 to suggest a trend:

“Looking at the change, we see that Kansas added 51,497 voters – but not Republicans. In fact, even with this overall gain in the number of voters, Republican registration is down 13,945 …”

In May 2010 the Topeka Capital Journal suggested “Oddity” party gaining members.  The article stated

“registered Libertarians statewide has risen since the 2008 primary by 6.8%, from 9,152 to 9,777 …“

But do these articles reflect reality in political party trends in Kansas?

What will time series show about party changes in Kansas?

Let’s first consider data for unaffiliated (“Independent“) voters in Kansas since 2004.  The chart below suggests a steady increase in the percentage of unaffiliated voters in Kansas from 2004 until mid-2010.  The number of unaffiliated voters in Kansas was up almost 2 percent.

However, the most recent data from Sept. 2010 shows a sharp 0.8 percent  decline:

Trend in % Unaffiliated (Independent) Voters in Kansas

Like suggested by Dome on the Range, the number of Republicans is down in Kansas.

The percentage of Republicans in Kansas dropped about 2.5 percent from 2005 till June 2010.  However, in the last few months there has been an increase of slightly more than 1 percent :

Trend in % Republican Voters in Kansas

The data used in the charts in this article were obtained from the Kansas Secretary of State’s office.

Even with Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius in office, the percentage of Democrats in Kansas dropped slightly from 2004 till early 2008.  The 2008 presidential election inspired an increase of about 1.2% in Kansas Democrats, but since the election there has been a steady drop to a percentage lower than in 2004:

Trend in % Democratic Voters in Kansas

Instead of looking at each party individually, let’s plot the party percentages on the same chart:

Trend in % Party Voters in Kansas

Does the chart above suggest a dramatic change in the number of Unaffiliated, Republican or Democratic voters since 2004?

The 6.8% increase in Libertarians reported in Kansas in 2008 by the Topeka Capital Journal is not as meaningful of a change when viewed as a percentage of all voters.

Libertarians in Kansas have surged  0.03 percent — from 0.55 percent to 0.58 percent of all voters — since 2008, and the chart above shows how minuscule this change is compared to changes by Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

The table below shows the data used to create the charts above.

Table of Voters by Party in Kansas, 2004-2010

Date Democratic Libertarian Reform Republican Unaffiliated Total
2/5/2004 425,406

(27.17%)

 9,104

(0.58)

 1,724

(0.11%)

 719,208

(45.94%)

 410,053

(26.19%)

 1,565,495
3/1/2005 452,849

(26.82%)

 9,407

(0.56%)

 1,608

(0.10%)

 779,661

(46.17%)

 445,031

(26.36%)

 1,688,556
2/15/2006 440,879

(26.62%)

 9,090

(0.55%)

 1,535

(0.09%)

 762,264

(46.02%)

 438,388

(26.47%)

 1,656,416
2/7/2007 442,217

(26.58%)

 9,241

(0.56%)

 1,469

(0.09%)

 762,659

(45.83%)

 448,399

(26.95)

 1,663,985
1/28/2008 433,997

(26.51%)

 9,090

(0.56%)

 1,396

(0.09%)

 743,609

(45.42%)

 449,063

(27.43%)

 1,637,155
5/14/2008 447,015

(27.18%)

 9,071

(0.55%)

 1,367

(0.08%)

 739,090

(44.94%)

 448,112

(27.25%)

 1,644,655
7/2/2008 448,221

(27.27%)

 9,131

(0.55%)

 1,358

(0.08%)

 738,949

(44.85%)

 450,042

(27.31%)

 1,647,701
9/2/2008 451,546

(27.22%)

 9,118

(0.55%)

 1,296

(0.08%)

 750,977

(45.27%)

 445,949

(26.88%)

 1,658,886
1/22/2009 478,530

(27.79%)

 9,614

(0.56%)

 1,313

(0.08%)

 757,690

(44.00%)

 474,785

(27.57%)

 1,721,933
12/29/2009 468,317

(27.56%)

 9,615

(0.57%)

 1,220

(0.07%)

 740,791

(43.60%)

 479,089

(28.20%)

 1,699,059
6/16/2010 462,384

(27.21%)

 9,856

(0.58%)

 1,169

(0.07%)

 738,658

(43.47%)

 487,325

(28.68%)

 1,699,393
9/7/2010 459,991

(26.86%)

 9,920

(0.58%)

 1,129

(0.07%)

 763,646

(44.59%)

 477,784

(27.90%)

 1,712,509

Note:  Voters with unknown party designations are included in the total.

County

Statewide percentages give an overall view of the state, but there are significant party registration differences by county.

The chart below shows Wyandotte (WY) County is the “most Democratic” county while Washington (WA) County is the “most Republican” county with the 103 other counties in-between.

%Democratic vs. %Republican by Kansas Counties (Click to see enlargement of area in red above)

Click here, or on the chart above, to see an enlargement of the chart and study the %D-%R position of other counties.  (Review a list of county abbreviations used in the charts here.)

Review the county party summary data in this CSV file.

Contact: Earl F Glynn, earl@kansaswatchdog.org, KansasWatchdog.org

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Earl Glynn

  • http://www.thedonovan.com/swwbo Beth Donovan

    Earl, thanks for making this so clear. I am one of those Independents who switched to the Republican Party in July, along with quite a few other people I know in this area, to be sure we could vote in (and in my case be elected as precinct committeewoman) the August Primary.

    Interesting that the blog only included data from June, ignoring the more current data.

    One wonders if perhaps that blogger is attempting to skew the public’s perception.

  • peter jihns

    Why is the graph for Democrats distorted to look like a bigger drop than the other graphs? It is scaled across a little more than one percent, and the other graphs are 3 percent. They should be scaled to tell the real story that the democrat poulation hardly moved while the republicans and independents swapped more voters.

    peter

  • Earl Glynn

    Peter Jihns: You have a valid point.

    All of the charts were created using R and by default R creates a “full range” plot. The individual full range plots allow one to see subtle changes over time. But the color-coded charts are also shown in a single plot, all with the same scale, where small changes for all the parties are hard to see. The comparison that you’re concerned about can be seen in that plot.

    You are correct that a better approach would be to find the largest % change span of any party and use that scaling for all the parties. I’ll try to remember that later this year when I update those charts with data from 2011 and 2012.