Thank You President Obama

from the Harford County Dagger

For the first time in its history, Harford County has more voters registered Republican than Democrat – a watershed moment for the GOP, even though it has dominated the majority of local races for the last decade.

When the Elections Office closed its books on Tuesday, there were officially a dozen more Republicans than Democrats in Harford County.

Republicans (61,971) now make up 42.04% of Harford’s 147,408 total registered voters, compared to the Democrats (61,959) who comprise 42.03% of the vote.

“Harford County is officially Republican Red,” announced Republican Central Committee chair Kim Wagner in an email to Harford Republicans on Tuesday.

Harford County Board of Elections supervisor Jim Massey said Friday he had been noticing a lot of Democrats switching to the Republican Party so they can have a vote in the Primary Election. His office is processing about 400 registrations each month and each month he is seeing more voters becoming Republican.

Massey also said he noticed Harford County employees changing their registration to Republican, although he didn’t know if the reason for their change in affiliation was to vote for or against a particular candidate.

Ever since the infamous “Republican Tide” of 2002, which swept through the region when Bob Ehrlich was elected governor, the GOP has been making steady gains in Harford County.

Four years ago, on August 31, 2006, Harford County had 135,084 registered voters, 58,934 of which were Democrats and 57,989 of which were Republicans – a difference of 945.

There was a resurgence of Democratic registration two years ago, when Barack Obama was elected president, but since then the trend has been going toward Republican, Massey said.

As of Tuesday, August 17:

Democrat —— 61,959
Republicans —— 61,971
Green —— 278
Constitution —— 37
Libertarians —— 490
Unaffiliated —— 21,983
Other —— 690

TOTAL —— 147,408