Tulsa World reporter Curtis Killman had a
good story in Monday’s paper, looking at how the state’s voting population is becoming increasingly independent — unaligned with either political party.
Since March, the number of nonaligned voters in Oklahoma has grown by 4,582. At the same time, the Republican Party has picked up 1,544 registrations and the Democratic Party has lost 3,306 voters.
Independents represent only 11.8 percent of state voters, but 20 years ago they were only 3 percent of the voting population, and 50 years ago, they were 0.4 percent.
I took a closer look at the numbers and some trends stick out.
The number of independent voters is highest in areas that are growing the fastest, have a younger population, and have the most Republicans.
Texas County, the Panhandle county where animal slaughter and feed operations have produced a fast-growing, young population, has the highest percentage of independent voter — 15.6 percent.
The four counties with the highest number of independents — Texas, Comanche, Oklahoma and Cleveland — all have less than 12.3 percent of their population below age 65, and the top two for independents are closer to 10 percent. The state average is 14 percent.
Three of the four counties all have a higher percentage of their voters registered as Republican (the exception is Comanche County) and two of them, Texas and Woodward, are majority-Republican counties.
By contrast, the four counties with the fewest independents are Rogers Mills, Haskell, Major and Latimer — all with at least 18.4 percent of their population over 65. The highest level of GOP registration in that group is in Rogers Mills County, 32.6 percent. In Latimer County the Republican numbers go all the way down to 14.4 percent.
It seems pretty clear that the young, mobile voter in Oklahoma is more likely to be independent, and they’re more likely to be in places that have more political diversity in general.
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