Democrats out-registering GOP in Lee County

By CHARLIE WHITEHEAD, Naples News

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Democrats are registering faster than Republicans in Lee County just as they are across Florida.

But in Lee County, the party of the donkey - and of presumptive presidential candidate Barack Obama - is still only about 30 percent of the electorate.

So far in 2008, 4,689 new Democratic voters have registered in Lee County. The GOP received 4,143 new voters.

"We're not being inundated or over-run by either party," said Supervisor of Elections Sharon Harrington. "We've seen increases over time that are pretty much even. The biggest jump is in non-partisan."

At the end of 2007, there were 52,722 voters registered as non-partisan or in one of the other 25 smaller parties present in Lee County. There are now 67,049. That's 14,327 new voters who are neither Democrat nor Republican. That's almost 62 percent of the new voters.

"It's a constantly moving target," said Harrington.

County Republican party chief Gary Lee said Florida remains a Democratic state.

"The trend statewide is the same," he said. "We're still a Democratic state, but I don't see a huge spike."

County Democratic chief Ray Troy said he's glad to see the party make up ground locally.

"We haven't even started registering yet," he said.

The Obama campaign is starting a local voter registration drive Monday, Troy said. The new voter push will last until the registration deadline for the general election on Oct. 6.

"Not campaigning, just registering," Troy said.

The registration deadline for the Aug. 26 primary election is July 28.

Lee said the local GOP is targeting inactive voters more than unregistered ones. There are about 30,000 voters in Lee County who haven't voted for 787 days, making them inactive.

"Of those 30,000, there are 20,000 Republicans," Lee said.

The Democratic Party has no County commission candidates this year, but Troy said he's confident that'll change.

"It's a matter of Republicans having proven they can't manage anything, locally or nationally," he said. "I expect every commission race from now on will have a Democrat."