Changing Partisanship: Independent Voters are Yielding to the Democrats

One U.S. county Elections Office is located in the suburb of Las Vegas, Nevada, where signs of casino hotels shine bright with neon. The windows were crowded with the people to be registered to vote as the U.S. presidential vote is within a month. Registration for voting by mail has been closed since the 4th of this month, but four officers were spending the day sorting through a pile of these requests on the 9th.

In the state of Nevada, partisanship ought to be declared at the time of vote registration. Mervin Howard (45) from the city of Henderson, in the northern part of Nevada, marked the Democratic Party for the first time after thinking for a while in front of the registration paper.

He used to be a typical Independent who casts a vote for the candidate he is favor of regardless of the party. “The second term of the Bush administration is terrible. They spent money on the Iraq War, and now there is an economic crisis. I believe another party can change the direction.”

He moved from Oakland, California, near San Francisco, 7 years ago, but he couldn’t cast a vote in 2004 due to the registration error. The reason of the move-out was simply, “because the house was cheap.” He sold his apartment, which was tiny, to a family of four for $220,000 and bought a house with six bedrooms with the money. Due to the people like him who moved to cheaper accommodations, the population of Nevada increased from less than 2 million in 2001 to over 2.5 million in 2007.

This rapid expansion is changing the demographics of politics in the state. The Republican Party wins most of the time as the 70% of the population was white in 2000, but recently registered voters with the Democrats are increasing remarkably. The Republican advantage, which was held until 2007, has been reversed, and the Democrats outnumber them by 80,000 as of September this year. The U.S. media call the state a “purple” state, where the red of the Republicans and the blue of the Democrats dye each other.

According to a survey by CNN, Nevada is one of six purple states including Ohio and Florida. They were won by President Bush in the last two elections. These states will probably determine the battle, as the purpose is to collect the majority of delegates.

What brings people from other states to Nevada is cheap housing and the attractive labor market under the gigantic entertainment industry. The industry is under strong influence of the labor union. “Many of those who moved in for jobs are basically Independent voters, but they tend to move to the Democrat side as they incorporate into unions at workplaces in hotels and casinos, ” said Kenneth Fernandes, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

In addition, Nevada’s hyper-growing housing market with its population increase cooled down suddenly after the sub-prime loan problem came to the surface. According to the U.S. media, the number of foreclosures in Nevada reached nearly 25,000 between April and June this year. The rate of one in 43 houses [being foreclosed] is the worst in the U.S.

The current recession doubled discontent over the Republican administration. “Mistrust of the administration erupts as a form of voting registration as a Democrat,” Fernandez posits. The rapid increase of Hispanic voters, who are a strong influence of the Democrats, spurs the trend.

• The Republican in defense and the anxious supporters

The Obama camp mobilized a lot of volunteers from the other states in order to shift ‘purple’ to ‘blue.’ Eric Garcetti (36), the chairman of the Los Angeles City Council, visited door to door in the residential area of Las Vegas with a Obama badge on his chest on one weekend in the middle of this month. He brought about 150 volunteers with him from California. “We visited roughly 5,000 houses. What we said to them is economy first, and economy second. We went around and explained a tax-cut plan for middle- and low-income people.”

The Republican supporters are awfully anxious about the offense of the Obama camp.

A local branch of the Republican Party in Reno, the third largest city after Las Vegas and Henderson located in the northern part of the state, held a rally, watching the last presidential debate on TV live on the night of the 15th. About 80 people gathered. Heidi Smith, a head of the office, said aloud, “Obama is sending five groups here. Everyone, this weekend’s campaign is really important!”

Many Democratic supporters live in Clark Country, which includes Las Vegas. The Republicans’ rallying point for the past presidential elections has been Washoe Country, including the city of Reno and the other areas.

However, registered Republican voters were outnumbered by Democratic ones this month. The people who gathered in the rally grumbled, “Obama posts a lot of advertisements with the power of money…,” and “How can the Democrats not be responsible for the poor economic policy when they control the House?”, and, “If the Republicans lose in Washoe, we will not win Nevada. If we lose Nevada…,” she says and holds her tongue.

Of course, it is registered voters who actually decide the course of the election. The party they marked support for upon registration does not restrain them from switching to another party; plus, there are still 170,000 voters who are registered as the Independent. Some Republicans hope that the voters who have registered recently will actually turn out in low numbers.

However, Fernandez of the University of Nevada takes a different viewpoint: “The number of participants in the Democratic rally in January this month that selected the presidential nominee topped 110,000, which is by twelve times more than the last time. I suspect that the turnout in the election will be dramatic. ”