PHOENIX — The state's two major parties have added tens of thousands of registered voters since the 2000 general election. But one of the fastest-growing political groups in Arizona is made up of voters who don't want to join either party.
Since 2000, the number of independent voters in Arizona has soared by nearly 300,000 to nearly a quarter of all registered voters.
Independents "have doubled their numbers in 10 years, and they will continue to grow," said Arizona State University pollster Bruce Merrill. "At the current rate, it won't be long before they are the dominant group of voters in the state."
Since the 2004 general election, voters categorized by the state as "other" — almost entirely independents — were the only group to see their numbers grow.
Outnumbered by registered Republicans, Democrats have aggressively pursued independents over the past decade. But the GOP, more than a million strong statewide, now is doing likewise.
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"You'd be crazy if you didn't spend time and resources targeting independents," said Jake Logan, a Republican consultant who led Sen. Jon Kyl's successful re-election bid earlier this month. "Right now, they can make or break an election."
While the numbers of unaffiliated voters are increasing across the nation, the increase has been even more rapid in Arizona.
Arizona has been an open-primary state since 2004, meaning voters not affiliated with a political party can participate in primary elections. The change helped fuel the growth in independents because voters in states with closed primaries must join a party if they want to have a say in nongeneral elections.
"They are unaffiliated with a party, so they are more open to changing their mind and weighing any one race based on issues," said Fred Solop, a political science professor at Northern Arizona University and director of its social research laboratory.
"Often, it is the independents who are deciding races now, being more open-minded, weighing the individual merits of candidates or issues."
Political consultant Joe Yuhas, who worked with both Jim Pederson's failed Senate campaign and the effort against Proposition 107, credited independent voters with the defeat of the ballot measure that would have banned same-sex marriage and prohibited local governments from recognizing domestic partnerships.
Yuhas said research conducted for the anti-Prop. 107 campaign, Arizona Together, found that roughly three-quarters of Republicans supported the measure, while an equal percentage of Democrats opposed it.
Roughly two-thirds of independents opposed the proposal.
"Basically, the partisans canceled themselves out," Yuhas said, "so the election was decided by independents."
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