More Than 10K Republican Voters In Maricopa County Have Left Party Since U.S. Capitol Insurrection
Nearly 4,000 Maricopa County voters left the Republican Party within a week of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. New records show the exodus continued long after.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer tweeted Friday that 10,261 Republican voters changed their registration between Jan. 4 and Feb. 12
We're gonna start releasing monthly voter registration statistics from the Recorder account. But a few teasers on 2021 county voter party switches:
— Stephen Richer (@stephen_richer) February 12, 2021
Changing to:
DEM -- 2,816
REP -- 1,311
LBT -- 536
OTH -- 10,416
Changing from:
DEM -- 2,270
REP -- 10,261
LBT -- 388
OTH -- 2,187
That’s more than four times the number of voters who left the Democratic Party over the same period.
Political consultant Chuck Coughlin says the events at the U.S. Capitol were just the beginning of the GOP’s troubles in Arizona.
“Obviously there’s an ignition point for this conversation, this exodus from the party. I would cite that as the ignition point,” Coughlin said. “But it takes something more than that.”
Coughlin said the narrow re-election of controversial party chair Kelli Ward didn’t help, nor did the party’s reprimand of Gov. Doug Ducey.
“The fact that they censured the sitting governor would speak to a serious divide amongst Republican Party leaders in this state,” he said.
Records show that most voters are opting to disengage with any party and registering as unaffiliated.
