For the first time since 2016, Arizona’s more than 1.4 million unaffiliated voters outnumber registered Republicans.
There are 1,450,697 Arizona voters registered as “other” as of July 2023, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office, or nearly 35% of registered voters in the state. It’s just barely enough to outnumber registered Republicans, by about 5,000 voters.
Arizona’s latest party affiliation figures show there are 1,445,127 registered Republicans and more than 1,260,659 registered Democrats in the state. It also shows there were 33,738 registered Libertarians and 8,505 registered with No Labels, a group that’s seeking ballot access to potentially run a bipartisan “fusion” ticket in 2024.
The rising number of unaffiliated Arizona voters speaks to widespread dissatisfaction with the major political parties in a tightly contested swing state, and mirrors national trends. Data from Pew Research Center last year found 27% of Americans have an unfavorable view of both the Democratic and Republican parties, a record high since they began polling on the question in 1994.
Whether it means independent candidates like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., or a third party presidential candidate could prevail on Election Day in the state, however, is another matter.
Far from a monolith, self-identified independents range from conservatives to moderates and liberals. Most independent voters “lean” toward one party or the other, Pew Research Center data shows, with just 7% of U.S. adults reporting no preference for one party over the other as of 2018.
Independent voters are also often less politically engaged than hardcore partisans, which creates challenges for politicians courting them as a voting bloc. While Democratic and Republican voters don’t necessarily agree with every one of their party’s positions, they’re more organized and share more in common with their co-partisans than many independents do with one another.
The last time unaffiliated voters outnumbered registered Republicans in Arizona was between May 2014 and May 2016. That ended with Republicans regaining status as the state’s largest party and a surge in Democratic Party registration in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential primary.
Although unaffiliated voters in Arizona are allowed to vote in some primary elections under state law, they’re excluded from presidential primaries, which means some independents could decide to rejoin a major party between now and next year if they want to have a say in picking a major party nominee.
Regardless of how long independents maintain their plurality status in the state, their large numbers mean politicians need to win at least some of them over to be elected to statewide office.