Charts of new voter registrations this year by party in Kansas
Sedgwick County and the 4th Congressional District are outperforming the rest of state
Changes in total voter registrations by party have three components:
new registrations,
re-registrations with party changes,
registration removals (deaths, moves, …).
This article only focuses on the new registrations in 2024, which may be a reflection of interest in the 2024 general election. There will be many charts!
Future articles may eventually address statistics about party changers and those dropped from the voter rolls.
Two surprises in the new 2024 voter registrations this year:
New voter registrations in Jan. through April 2024 were down about 10% from the same period in 2020. So far in 2024 Democrat registrations are down nearly 50%, Libertarians are up about 10%, Republicans are up about 6%, and unaffiliated voters are up about 10%.
This year’s voter registrations in KS-04 congressional district and Sedgwick County are nearly double the registrations in KS-03 and Johnson County.
Last presidential election year 2020
Let’s start by looking at what happened in the last presidential election.
New voter registrations were roughly straight lines for Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters until the three week pause before the Aug. primary.
The registrations from Sept. until the pause before the general elections show an accelerating pace.
Republicans held a small edge in total new registrations, but that increased a bit after the Aug. primary.
Oct. 13, 2020 showed the largest number of registrations with 29,773 recorded that day, which preceded the pause before the general election.
About 214,300 newly-registered voters were eligible to vote in the Nov. 2020 election. That number included 53,000 Democrats, 4300 Libertarians, 80,000 Republicans and 77,000 unaffiliated voters.
New registrations in 2024 may be as large as in 2020 for the general election and Kansas for the first time will record 2 million voters. Or will it be a bit higher?
Past trends show an increase of new voter registrations, especially in a presidential election year in the following plot.
In general, voter registrations in presidential years are greater than gubernatorial years, which are greater than local election years.
There have been large increases in voter registrations in each presidential election year, 2012, 2016, 2020, over the previous election cycle.
So far in 2024 (January through April)
The top of the scale in the plots above was 250,000 voters, but that’s too high to show year-to-day values in 2024.
Be cautious in the plots below since the vertical (y-axis) scales vary by plot to accommodate a wide range from a county to the whole state. But overall patterns by party can be compared among the state, congressional district and county charts.
April 2024 showed more new registrations in Kansas than any other year, but that was caused by the 3-week registration delay due to the presidential preference election on March 19. Many March registrations had to wait till April to be processed.
The count of 37,911 voters is actually from Jan. 1 through May 3. This compares with a total of 42,087 in 2020. So, 2024 is tracking about 10% behind 2020.
The breakdown by party for new registrations in 2024 is as follows with numbers in parentheses showing the values from on May 3, 2020 for comparison:
6,978 Democrats (13,403 in 2020, a drop of nearly 50%)
677 Libertarians (609 in 2020, an increase of about 10%)
15,437 Republicans (14,513 in 2020, an increase of about 6%)
14,819 Unaffiliated voters (13,562 in 2020, an increase of about 10%)
Congressional Districts
Let’s take a look at the Kansas congressional districts.
Can readers suggest why the numbers for District 4 in Wichita are about twice any other congressional district? KS-04 has had 15,529 new registrations so far this year, while the other districts only had 7,650 (KS-01), 7,073 (KS-02), and 7,659 (KS-03).
Four Largest Counties
The largest counties are the major factors for the congressional districts they are in.
Most the the KS-04 increase of 15,529 was from Sedgwick County with an increase of 12,548. Likewise, Johnson County’s increase of 6,212 was over 80% of the 7,659 increase in KS-03.
Unaffiliated voters (gray lines) had the most registrations in Johnson, Shawnee and Wyandotte, while Republicans (red lines) had the most registrations in Shawnee.
In both Johnson and Shawnee, unaffiliated registrations (gray lines) were greater than Republicans (red lines), which were greater than the Democrats (blue lines).
Wyandotte county registrations are a bit surprising. While unafflicted registrations are nearly the majority, Democrats barely exceeded Republican registration.
Other Counties
New voters in some counties like Crawford, Douglas and Ford are mostly unaffiliated.
Lyon and Saline counties show near parity in new registrations between Republican and unaffiliated party affiliations.
Registrations by party can vary a lot by county.
Did Lyon County pause registrations for 21 days before the presidential primary?
Want to see the plot for your county? Drop me an email and I’ll send you the plot and data.
New Registrations by Age
2020 Statewide
In 2020 the median age for newly registered voters was about 32 years old. One-fourth of voters were 23 and younger and one-fourth were 49 and older.
The histogram below shows that 50% of voters were 32 years old or younger, and 50% were older than 32 years old.
2024 Statewide, Jan. through April
“Spikes” in the histogram by age for the 2024 data are seen at ages 18, 19, 21, 27, and 33, but the overall history from 2020 does not show the jumps at 21 or higher.
Can anyone suggest why these 21+ ages may be showing spikes?
Reader feedback for age 21 spike: The age 21 spike could be because they change their driver's license from vertical to horizontal when they reach drinking age.
The spike at age 33 was not seen in KS-02, but was seen in the other congressional districts.
2024 KS-04, Jan. through April
The age histogram for KS-04 for 2024 so far this year shows greater balance below age 70 than the other districts, such as KS-03 shown below.
2024 KS-03, Jan. through April
Technical Notes
Age with fractional year is computed for the November general election day for the year of interest, and then rounded to the nearest integer.
“New” voters have a registration date within the year of interest but may not have any prior voting history. This excludes existing voters moving between counties since they are usually given a new registration date for the county but have prior voting history.
Thanks for doing all this good work.