Published: Sarah Procopio | LSU Manship School News Service
April 5, 2021
BATON ROUGE — Party registration data from the secretary of state’s office reveals that roughly 7,800 Louisiana voters have left the Republican Party since the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Dips in registrants for the party have been seen around the country. A report fromThe New York Times found more than 100,000 Republicans left the party in a number of states in the weeks after the U.S. Capitol riots, and Louisiana’s voter registration numbers mirror that trend.
Tanner Magee, the second-ranking Republican in the Louisiana House as its speaker pro tempore, cited the challenges national politics creates for public officials at home.
“I’m not sure there’s anything that I can do on a state level other than try to be the best legislator I can and do the best for the state of Louisiana, and hopefully, if you have some people out there that are more state-focused in their thoughts, that might mean something to them,” said Magee.
The Republican Party lost 5,503 registrants in January, 1,709 in February and 598 in March. The three months of losses came after more than 12 months of steady increases in Republican registrations
Democrats lost over 8,000 voter registrations in Louisiana between January and April. But unlike the Republican Party, Democrats saw losses in most months in 2020 and 2021.
The recent drop in Republican registrations also stood out because the party has had an increase of roughly 37% increase in registrants in Louisiana over the last 10 years while Democratic registrations have dropped by about 12%.
The size of the decrease of 7,810 Republican Party registrations so far this year has not been seen in the months after other recent presidential election cycles. From January through March in 2017, the Republican Party in Louisiana gained 2,206 registrants. In 2013, there was a 1,171 decrease of Republican registrants during the same months.
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LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 