Republicans and Democrats
Republicans and DemocratsiStock

Over one million registered Democrats have changed their party affiliation over the past year, switching to the Republican Party.

According to an Associated Press analysis of voter registration rolls in 43 states, more than one million voters have flipped from Democrat to Republican over the last 12 months – far more than the number of Republicans who became Democrats, which is estimated at 630,000 for the same period.

The trend marks a reversal from the Trump years, when more voters left the GOP for the Democratic Party.

The strongest shift away from the Democratic Party and towards the Republican Party was found in the suburbs.

Suburbanites, traditionally a strongly Republican demographic, has drifted away from the GOP in recent years, a trend which was accelerated during Trump’s two presidential campaigns, as college-educated swing voters embraced Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.

In some battleground states, the shift towards the GOP is even more dramatic.

While the Republican Party gained 58.8% of voters nationwide who changed their affiliation over the past year, in Florida, that figure was 70%, and in Pennsylvania it was 63%.

The suburban shift towards the GOP was particularly strong in Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Ohio, Virginia, and Washington.

In December 2021, there were an estimated 48 million registered Democrats nationwide, compared to 35.7 million registered Republicans, according to Ballot Access News. Not all states register voters by party.