For the first time in memory, and maybe for the first time ever, Democrats outnumber Republicans on the active voter rolls in Eagle County.
Democrats are chalking up the numbers to an intense get-out-the-vote effort by volunteers for the Barack Obama campaign, and to excitement for Obama that has lured unaffiliated and Republican voters to the party.
“I think there’s an enthusiasm for the candidate and I think his vision for the country is a vision that people can relate to,” said Debbie Marquez, a Democratic National Committee member from Edwards. “New voters are more likely to affiliate than they were in the past. It definitely makes a difference when you have enthusiasm for a candidate and that translates to enthusiasm for the party he represents.”
Eagle County clerk’s office employees are still working long days and weekends to process a flood of voter registrations and mail-in ballot requests. The voter numbers will continue to change, said County Clerk Teak Simonton, but after watching Democratic voters on the upswing for months, she expects them to hold on to their lead over Republicans.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Democrats numbered 6,731 on the active voter rolls. That is 120 more than the Republicans’ 6,611. Unaffiliated voters still carry the day, though, with 9,250 active voters.
“It seems like the Democrats have been inching up for several weeks,” Simonton said. “I’ve been doing lots of data entry, and it seems evident to me. I’ve got many more Democrats registering than Republicans at this point, and a lot of people changing from unaffiliated to Democrats.”
That is as true on the El Jebel side of Eagle County as on the Eagle Valley side, she said.
Simonton is among those who switched. A 7-year clerk in Eagle County, she ran for the seat as a Republican but changed her affiliation to Democrat last summer.
“I was just more comfortable with the social positions of the Democratic Party than the Republican Party,” she said, “and I felt I had to be true to my heart. It has nothing to do with the way I do my job. Never has. Never will.”
Eagle County has long been a conservative stronghold, from the old ranching communities to Vail (a resort town for the right-leaning wealthy, much as Aspen is for the left). Simonton said she is not aware of Democrats’ ever outnumbering Republicans there before.
“This is a Republican county,” she said. “It was a ranching county. That was the history. It’s just very interesting to see how things are changing. Obviously, there’s a frustration with what’s going on in the world and lots of new people moving into the county.”
Simonton’s crew has been working overtime to keep up with last-minute registrations and requests that arrived by the Tuesday postmark deadline. They worked last weekend, put in 12 1/2-hour days this week and will work again next weekend, after receiving some 2,000 documents on Monday and another 1,500 on Tuesday.
“They’ve had people registering voters for literally months now,” Randy Milhoan, chairman of the Eagle County Republican Party, said of the Democrats. “They’ve had an Obama office and they just have a high energy level.”
Milhoan said the GOP has not done as good a job signing up voters. And, he said, the county’s political climate is changing, too. When he first came in 1969, he said, although some miners were Democrats, most ranchers in the area were Republicans.
“The entire culture was Republican,” he noted.
That has changed as more left-leaning newcomers moved into the area, he said. But with more unaffiliated voters than those in either party, Milhoan pointed out, Republicans and Democrats will have to work hard not only to bring the faithful to the polls, but to lure the unaffiliated to their side.
“I think every one of our races is going to be tight as hell,” he said.
dfrey@aspendailynews.com