Voter Registration Maps: first GOP decline in 26 years

Here we go with the latest installment of my long-running Voter Registration Maps series. These statistics are from the annual January 15th report from the State Election Board. You can view my previous post from last week 'Oklahoma voter registration changes, 2023 to 2024' at this link.

In this post, I have graphics showing growth by county for all parties and for Independents, and a comparison of Democrats versus Independents by county. Take a look, and share with your friends:

You can click each image to view it larger.

For the first time since I started tracking these figures, the Republican Party declined as a percentage of registered voters. Granted, it was by a mere 0.14%, from 51.88% to 51.74%, but this changes a decades long trend (the last time the GOP declined was by 0.11% in 1998).

Republicans slid in raw percentage in 25 of 77 counties. I'm waiting for additional data from the Oklahoma State Election Board, but I'm assuming much of that transfer came from Republicans switching to Independent. Republicans declined more than Democrats did in 7 of those 25 counties, primarily in rural (and extremely Republican) northwestern Oklahoma. In 4 of those 7 counties, Independents outnumber Democrats.

The growth of registered Independents (not including Libertarians) outpaced Republicans in 60 of 77 counties, by an average of 0.5%.

Have we reached peak GOP saturation in some of these counties, especially in the north and northwest? Only time will tell.

Democrats once again declined as a percentage in every single county, and are at an all-time low in registration, with just 28.36% of voters statewide. The slowest loss is occuring in the most heavily-Republican parts of the state (northwest Oklahoma) and the OKC/Tulsa metros.

Independents increased in every county over the past year, averaging slighly over 1% growth in each county as a percentage of registered voters. 

Independents outpaced Republicans in growth, increasing from 17.74% of registered voters to 18.95% (+1.21%). In all but 17 counties (mainly in the 2nd District), Independent growth beat Republican growth. Independents now lead Democrats in six counties, as discussed next.

18.95% of registered voters in Oklahoma are now Independent.

Independents lead Democrats in six counties across the state: Beaver (+1.9%), Garfield (+0.64%), Major (+1.49%), Texas (+1.96%), Washington (+1.02%), and Woodward (+1.1%). They are on the verge of eclipsing Democrats in Alfalfa (-1.93%), Canadian (-0.93%), Logan (-1.96%), as well as 13 other counties where they trail by between 2% and 5%.

Libertarians made slight gains in all but 13 counties, with the largest growth being in Harmon County (+0.2.15%) and Tillman County (+0.191%). They now comprise 0.952% of registered voters statewide, up from 0.898%.