The Trump Effect: New Voters

The Democratic Party in California has seen a staggering surge in voter registration leading up to its June 7 primary, but the Republican ranks are growing as well, even if the GOP remains an underdog in every state election.

California has accrued 1.5 million new voters up through April, which is double the number added during the first few months of the 2012 election year, according to a study conducted by Political Data Inc. And there’s been a burst of activity from mid-March to mid-May: Democrats expanded by more than 220,000 new registrants, a rise of nearly 3 percentage points, up to 7.7 million. Republicans, meanwhile, jumped by nearly 70,000, for a 1.5-percentage-point increase and a total of 4.8 million.

“What’s interesting is that the upticks have been greatest among Democrats and Latinos on those days where Donald Trump is kind of dominating the conversation.”

“What’s interesting is that the upticks have been greatest among Democrats and Latinos on those days where Donald Trump is kind of dominating the conversation,” Paul Mitchell, Political Data’s vice president, told Politico — adding that the days when voter registration rose the most tended to coincide with Trump winning states during the primary season.

The bombastic Trump has been making headlines ever since he first announced his presidential bid nearly a year ago, as his controversial comments spark intense debate throughout social media platforms. In particular, some of Trump’s earliest comments about illegal immigration caused uproar.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said last year. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Unsurprisingly, these comments did not sit well with many potential Latino voters as they turned out to protest Trump’s remarks and take their own form of action. Compared to the results from the 2012 election, the Latino voter pool has seen an unprecedented 123 percent growth rate.

But these new voter registration numbers have led some to wonder what exactly has caused such a strong reaction from Latinos in particular.

“If you are sitting at home, and you are an unregistered Latino in California, and you watch Donald Trump win New York by 50 points or whatever [while] saying all these things, you’re like, ‘Well, I’m not going to sit around anymore,'” Reed Galen, a former top adviser to Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, told Politico.

Mitchell noted that the surge in California’s voters is so remarkable because comparable numbers have not been seen the 1980 presidential election between Ronald Reagan and incumbent Jimmy Carter.

“The motivation to register is as much to vote against somebody as it is to vote for somebody.”

“The motivation to register is as much to vote against somebody as it is to vote for somebody,” Mitchell said, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

But the real effect these record numbers of Latino voter registrations will have upon the general election has yet to be determined, as the Democratic Party first sets itself up for the upcoming primary showdown in California between Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders.