More Pinellas County residents changed their party affiliation to Republican than they did to become Democrats during the first six weeks of the year. Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 16 more than 4,200 voters changed their party to the GOP while only 3,825 changed their affiliation to Democrat.
Voters had until Feb. 16 to change parties for that change to apply in the March 15 Presidential Preference Primary. That date is important because Florida is a closed primary state, meaning Democrats can only vote for a Democrat and Republicans can only vote for a Republican. No Party Affiliation voters cannot vote in the primary at all.
With that in mind, a total of 4,800 NPAs signed on with a political party. Of those, more Democrats were registered than Republicans by slightly fewer than 400 voters.
Where things may look good for the local GOP lies in the number of people who swapped parties from Democratic to Republican. While 754 voters dumped the GOP and headed left, more than 1,500 Democrats signed on to become Republicans.
That can be taken in a number of ways. First, members of the GOP can glean from it a sense of optimism that more Democrats are joining their party than the other way around. That’s key in a general election when Republicans will need to earn a good bit of the moderate vote to win the election.
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