Ridenbaugh Press/Northwest

The new Oregon voter registration stats, for June, are similar to the recent rounds in that Democrats have been making persistent gains. (There’s currently a Democratic advantage of more than 200,000 voters over the Republican numbers.)

But what do those translate to locally?

We did a couple of things with the breakdowns. First we compared the counties in June this year to June of 2004 – same point in that cycle. Democrats then had a statewide voter advantage, but much slimmer (about 52,000, compared to four times that now). Most counties didn’t flip in partisan registration preference, but those that did were significant. Four years ago, Republicans had a narrow lead of about 7,000 in the state’s second-largest, Washington County; now Democrats lead there by 20,000. In Clackamas County, Republicans were in the lead for years ago by a narrow 3,000; now Democrats do, by 10,000. Maybe most strikingly, Marion County, long a Republican base, had a Republican lead of about 8,000 four years ago, and now Democrats narrowly lead there.

When you add in enhanced leads in Multnomah County (Democrats did lead about about 2-1, now it’s closer to 3-1) and Lane County (a narrow lead in 2004, now approaching 2-1), that gives Democrats a sweep of the five largest counties.

We also took a look at the legislative districts.

If legislative districts were held this year entirely by whichever party, Republican or Democratic, now has the edge in voter registration, the legislature would look like this:

Senate: Democrats 21, Republicans 9 (districts 1,2,9, 12, 13, 27, 28, 29, 30).

House: Democrats 39, Republicans 21 (districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 15, 17, 18, 19, 23, 24, 25, 26, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60).

Which is more Democratic, in other words, than just about anyone currently expects the legislature to be after the November elections.