A new analysis finds nearly 32,000 voters in California’s American Independent Party changed their official registration and left the party in the two weeks after a Los Angeles Times investigation identified widespread confusion among the party’s members. The change comes after a series of stories last month about voters who had intended to be politically independent, what’s known in California as having “no party preference.” A poll conducted for The Times found 73% of American Independent Party members did not know they had registered with an actual political party. Paul Mitchell, a political data specialist whose firm sells exclusive analyses of voter data to California political campaigns, worked with The Times on the stories. He conducted the new analysis for The Times on a pro-bono basis.
Using voter data from each of California’s 58 counties, Mitchell found that 31,772 AIP voters left the party in the two weeks prior to May 1. The first story was published in The Times on April 17. The party gained 10,744 new members during the same two-week period — thus resulting in a net registration loss of 21,028 voters.
The exodus equates to about 6.7% of the AIP’s total registration as of mid-April, which was 473,481 voters. By comparison, the ranks of Democratic and Republican voters in that same time frame each shrank by a fraction — less than three-tenths of 1%.
Full Article: Tens of thousands have left California’s American Independent Party in the last month – LA Times.