The face of Delaware’s electorate is changing as more voters register as political independents or with third parties, even as doing so locks them out of voting in the state’s competitive and often-consequential primary elections.
Collectively, Delaware voters that don’t affiliate with the two dominant parties now make up the second largest political contingent in the state – behind Democrats and ahead of Republicans, according to data from the state Department of Elections.
They overtook Republicans at the end of last year, and in the first five months of 2024 have increased their rolls by another 10,000 voters to about 219,000 in the state.
During that same period of Jan. 1 to May 24 – the deadline for voters to change their registration before September’s primary – Republicans lost nearly a thousand voters, ending with about 206,000.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party saw the biggest decline both in sheer numbers and as a percentage of its total, with a loss of more than 2,600 voters during the first five months of this year. Still, the Democratic Party remained the largest contingent in Delaware with more than 350,000 registered voters, according to data from the state.
In all, the rise of independents in Delaware and the modest declines of the major parties mirror a trend that emerged nationally about a decade ago and has since held steady. The trend has been particularly dramatic in states where party control is less pronounced than in Delaware and where primary elections are open to independent voters.
According to the political polling company Gallup, 43% of voters nationally identified as independents in 2023, while the Democratic and Republican parties each garnered 27% of those polled.
Two decades earlier in 2003, independents made up 36% of the national voter base, with Republicans at 32% and Democrats at 31%, according to Gallup.
When reached for comment, the chairwoman of the Delaware Democratic Party directed questions to her spokesman, Travis Williams, who attributed the increasing number of independents in Delaware to what he called political toxicity nationally, and to the state Division of Motor Vehicles’ new voter registration system.
“We’re about a year into having automatic voter registration here,” Williams said of the system, which automatically places a person into the voter rolls when they obtain a state-issued identification.
The Delaware Republican Party’s chairwoman and vice chairman did not respond to emailed requests to comment for this story.
Trend seen statewide
The increasing numbers of independents registering in Delaware is being fueled relatively proportionally across all three of the state’s counties.
But, the decline in voters affiliating with the two dominant parties is happening more heavily in New Castle County, which saw a loss of about 1,700 Democrats and about 700 Republicans in early 2024.
That trend continued in Wilmington despite a recent effort by Gov. John Carney – who currently is running to be the next mayor of the city – to convince potential supporters to register as Democrats before the primary election on Sept. 10.
Carney’s campaign sent out a political mailer earlier this year that urged voters to register with his party, or risk losing their vote in the election that is overwhelmingly Democratic.
“Because Democrats have an 8-to-1 registration margin in the City of Wilmington, the Mayor is almost guaranteed to be chosen on Primary Day, September 10,” the mailer stated.
Political observers attribute at least part of the 2016 victory of the current Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki to a mass re-registration campaign, which turned many Republicans registrants into Democrats.
But Carney’s effort this year does not appear to have experienced the same success. Between Jan. 1 and May 24, Wilmington’s Democratic Party voter rolls dropped by nearly 500 to about 37,000, according to state election officials.
When asked about the recent mailer, a spokesman for Carney’s mayoral campaign provided an emailed statement that reiterated the message that “if Wilmington residents want to have their voices heard, they had to register to vote in the primary.”
“Governor Carney is a proud, lifelong Democrat running to be the mayor of every Wilmington resident,” the statement said.
When asked about Carney’s mailer, his Democratic Party opponent, former Wilmington Treasurer Velda Jones-Potter said in an email that it amounted to “urging Republicans to dress as Democrats for a day to sway the upcoming election in the City of Wilmington.”
"What we’re witnessing is a growing loss of trust among voters, especially younger voters, in Delaware’s democratic process,” Jones-Potter said.
Open up the primary?
The rising number of independents is occurring statewide even as Delaware is one of about a dozen states with a closed primary election, which restricts voting only to members of a party.
In many parts of the state, which lean heavily toward one party or another, it is the primary election that ultimately decides a race. Many observers even argue that statewide contests are decided during the primary, given that Democrats have won every statewide race since 2018.
But early this year, a Newark Republican introduced a bill in the Delaware General Assembly that would have changed election law to allow political independents to vote in the state’s partisan primary elections.
Last week, that so-called open primary bill was considered in a House committee that included Rep. Mike Ramone (R-Pike Creek), who is currently running to become the Republican nominee for governor. During the hearing, Ramone indicated he might never have joined a political party if Delaware had an open primary system, allowing anyone to cast votes in races.
“If I were an independent, and I had that opportunity, I never would have jumped in a party or another,” said Ramone.
Ultimately, the bill failed to pass out of the committee after several Democratic lawmakers expressed skepticism toward allowing political independents to decide their party’s candidates.
When asked about the measure on Monday, Williams – the spokesman for the Delaware Democratic Party – said the party does not take a stand on whether the state should use an open or closed primary system.
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