ALBANY – It’s long been the case that Democrats easily outnumber Republicans both statewide and in the Capital Region – but the enrollment gap is getting wider.

New state Board of Elections data shows that the state Democratic Party boasts roughly 5.94 million active members, up about 2.7 percent since last year and 4.8 percent since President Donald Trump was elected in November 2016.

At the same time, Republican enrollment has slipped down to 2.63 million active members – a slight decrease from last year and a .7 percent dip from 2016.

Over a three-year period, that amounts to an additional 274,000 Democrats and 18,300 fewer Republicans in a state where Democrats currently hold a political trifecta, controlling the governor's office as well as Assembly and Senate.

While Democrats have long claimed the governorship and the state Assembly, voters in 2018 elected the first blue state Senate in a decade last November. That same election saw a blue wave that helped Democrats also regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The trend is mirrored in the four central Capital Region counties, where about 206,000 active voters are Democrats, compared to 142,000 Republicans. For the left, that’s an increase of 3.8 percent since last year and 4.9 percent since Trump’s election.

On the right, Republicans saw a .3 percent drop in a year and a more noticeable 2 percent slump since 2016. Again, for a head count, that means 9,800 more Democrats in the Capital District since Trump’s election, compared to 2,800 fewer Republicans.

Over the same three-year period, the number of voters without a party affiliation rose by about 63,000 statewide and 470 in the Capital Region.

But as party enrollment continues to fluctuate, the number of overall registered voters both statewide and in the Capital Region is on an upward trend. The number of active voters statewide has jumped by more than 300,000 since Trump’s election – a 2.7 percent increase.

In the Capital Region, active voter enrollment has increased by roughly 7,500 – 1.4 percent – since 2016.

Those are promising numbers for advocates who successfully pushed government leaders this year to implement New York’s first-ever early-voting period from Oct. 26 to Nov. 3. Proponents of the extended window hope that giving voters an extra nine days to hit the polls will increase civic engagement.

Unofficial Board of Elections totals on Sunday clocked the number of early voters at more than 250,000, representing about 2.2 percent of active registered voters statewide. It’s two days too early to tell whether the additional days will help boost overall voter turnout, especially in the cycle before a presidential election year, which typically sees the fewest ballots cast in the four-year window.

As John Conklin of the state Board of Elections put it: “There is no expectation of what it’s going to be.”

In the Capital Region, 13,280 people cast ballots during the early voting period, about 2.5 percent of registered voters. On Sunday, local board of elections commissioners were skeptical that this year’s window would bolster overall turnout, given that many of the voters were individuals who were likely to cast ballots on Election Day regardless.