Today, the New York Times gets in on the act:

For more than three years starting in 2005, there has been a reduction in the number of voters who register with the Republican Party and a rise among voters who affiliate with Democrats and, almost as often, with no party at all.

As the story notes, swings in voter registration happen all the time. Often it's reflective of nothing more than which party has the better field organization or the more heated primary. It's also true that party affiliation often does not have an impact on Election Day turnout. Plenty of registered Democrats pulled the lever for Bush in 2004, for instance.

But a sustained movement away from the GOP over a period of years is significant:

[F]or a shift away from one party to sustain itself — the current registration trend is now in its fourth year — is remarkable, researchers who study voting patterns say. And though comparable data are not available for the 21 states where voters do not register by party, there is evidence that an increasing number of voters in those states are also moving away from the Republican Party based on the results of recent state and Congressional elections, the researchers said.

So now we're onto something.

But if a damaged GOP brand and a new generation of progressive-leaning voters are causing an actual, quantifiable change in the nation's voting population, what are the implications? Well, the NYT suggests that this change in voter registration isn't all about choosing a new president:

Elected Democrats have made significant inroads even in places where Republicans have enjoyed a generation of dominance. In Colorado, for example, Democrats control the governorship and both houses of the Legislature for the first time in over four decades. Last year, Virginia Democrats gained a 21-to-19 majority over Republicans in the State Senate, the first time the party has controlled that body in a decade.

In New Hampshire, Democrats are in control of both the legislative and executive branches for the first time since 1874. In Iowa, Democrats have taken over the statehouse and the governor’s office simultaneously for the first time in a generation.

The changes in state government could have broad implications for Congressional redistricting and on policies like immigration, health care reform and environmental regulation, which are increasingly decided at the state level.

But even as we are measuring the impact, we have to ask if these shifts can be sustained. Are they a reaction to the general incompetence of the GOP -- from the Bush administration to Republican-controlled state governments -- all across the country? If so, does that mean these trends will slow down and reverse as new leaders take office? Or is this about a generation of Millennials coming of age and engaging in the political process?

This election will answer some of these questions, I suspect. But not all of them.

As you can probably tell, I'm fascinated by the upswing in Democratic voter registration in states across the country (Acknowledging all the usual caveats, of course). For me, the larger question is not how this effects the 2008 Election, but what a shift that numbers of the millions might mean in regards to the nation's the long term political trends.

Unsurprisingly, I was intrigued by this piece from Rhodes Cook, which attempts to take a wide-angle view of these changes (bonus points for lots of charts):

In the 29 states (plus the District of Columbia) where voter affiliation is kept by party, the Democrats have scored perceptible gains since the presidential election of 2004 while the Republicans have suffered significant losses. To be specific, the number of registered Democrats in party registration states has grown by nearly 700,000 since President George W. Bush was reelected in November 2004, while the total of registered Republicans has declined by almost 1 million.

Rhodes acknowledges that this shift is occurring in a pool of 96 million registered, partisan voters, so lets temper some enthusiasm here. But as I've written about before, some of those shifts are occurring in some significant places -- in PA, with a shift of million voters to the Democratic column, for example.

There are also some important states for Democrats (particularly legislators) -- OH, MI, VA, MN and WI -- which don't require voters to identify with a party. And I don't think it's too much to assume that similar movement toward the Democratic party is occurring in these states as well.

Sunday brought news of yet another state (Florida) where Democrats are banking new voters at a serious clip:

Democratic voters have out-registered Republicans by a nearly 7-to-1 margin since January.

State totals show Democrats gained a net of 106,508 voters from January through May, compared with 16,686 for the GOP.

As I've said before, new voters flocking to our party is definitely a good thing. Even more so when it's a state like Florida, which is hard to top in terms of political significance in recent history.

But I want to temper expectations a bit. For one, as the Orlando Sentinel reports:

In a state with 10.45 million voters, the new figures didn't significantly change the overall ratio of Democrats to Republicans; the state is still roughly 41 percent Democrat and 37 percent registered Republican, with most of the rest No Party Affiliation.

For another, new voters won't necessarily have a huge impact -- at least when it comes to our legislative races. There might not be a state in the country with a worse map in terms of districts. Democrats picked up 7 seats in the lower chamber last cycle, and we're still down 43/76. Even another unqualified victory like this in November will leave us seriously behind.

That doesn't mean this news isn't welcome or encouraging. It just means we still have a long way to go before a real Democratic agenda gets any traction in the state.

As long as these stories keep getting written, I'm going to keep noting them here:

Democrats now have a 55,560-voter lead over the Republicans in a state that was dead even a presidential cycle ago.

(via)

Chris Kromm at Facing South posts some more exciting news about Democratic voter registration in Georgia and North Carolina:

Georgia has grown the most: an astounding 300,000 new voters have been added to the rolls since January 2008, putting the total number of active registrants at 4.7 million […]

According to N.C. State Board of Election statistics, just over 203,000 new voters have registered since January.

Like Georgia, new registrations have favored Democratic, independent and African-American voters. African-American voters have gone from 20.1% to 20.7% of the N.C. electorate in 2008. By party, Democrats have gone from 44.8% to 45.3%, and unaffiliated voters from 20.9% to 21.4% since January.

Those gains have been at the expense of Republicans, who went from being 34.3% of N.C. voters in January to 33.3% by the end of June -- a one-point drop.

This comes on the heels of a Democratic voter registration drive in Louisiana, which completely overwhelmed the state board of elections.

This is obviously only half the battle (still gotta get registered voters to the polls on Election Day) but these reports are still unreservedly good news.

In Pennsylvania, longtime Republican strongholds in counties throughout the state are slowly shifting away from the GOP.

On Thursday, in Dauphin County -- which includes the state capitol of Harrisburg -- the numbers of registered voters looked like this: 81,489 Democrats and 81,340 Republicans.

In Philadelphia suburbs like Bucks and Montgomery counties, the trend is the same.

Waves of new Democratic voter were registered during the heated primary contest between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. That month of intensive campaigning certainly helped to put some areas over the top.

But this change is part of a longer-term demographic trend, and the end of the primary hasn't stopped the movement:

Statewide, Democrats have added voters since the April 22 primary, picking up 37,529 registrations while Republicans have lost 1,504, according to figures from the Pennsylvania Department of State [...]

From November 2007 to April's primary, the Republican Party lost 58,119 registered voters.

We still have a lot of work to do between now and November to maintain our control of the Penn. House, but information like this is heartening.