West Virginia: Independent voters gain registration percentages

Democrats hope to reverse registration losses
Herald Dispatch
Apr. 27, 2006
CHARLESTON -- State Democrats have lost a little ground to Republicans and independents in voter registration, but one party leader says President Bush's problems could reverse that trend.... Cabell County shows 55,282 registered voters for the
May 9 primary, down 243 from the 2004 primaries and down 5,370 from the 2004 General Election. Cabell Democrats make up 54 percent of that total, but their numbers are down 968 from the 2004 primary and 3,154 from the 2004 General Election. And that was the statewide trend for the Democratic Party, which dropped from 58 percent of voters in 2004 to 57 percent this spring.... The GOP's share of total voters actually rose slightly, to just over 30 percent. But the party sported slightly higher margins in the early 1990s. The ranks of third-party and unaffiliated voters, meanwhile, grew to 141,142 or 12.5 percent of registered voters.... more