By Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee

The decline of California’s Republican Party, as underscored by the most recent voter registration data, is a truly remarkable, even historic, phenomenon.

Dan Walters

Republicans dominated the state’s politics for much of the 20th century – personified by Ronald Reagan – but began to fade as the century closed.

The new registration report shows Republicans declining to just 25.97 percent of the state’s 19.4 million potential voters, 9 percentage points below the party’s nearly 35 percent share in 2000.

Oddly, however, Democrats didn’t gain. In fact, they’ve dropped about a half-point to 44.77 percent since 2000. The big increase came in voters without a party preference, from 14.36 percent in 2000 to 24.51 percent in 2017. By next year’s general election, they may outnumber Republicans.

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