Foreclosures Hurting Democrats Electoral Prospects?

The Dems have been crowing about incredible gains in voter registration lately.  Even if we assume that the 1.3 million voters ACORN registered were all legit, there are reasons that the foreclosure crisis will reduce the effect of Dem registration edge.   Since the end of the Dem primary in June, around 1.3 million homes were foreclosed on according to Realtytrac. More than 2.5 million homes have foreclosed this year alone.  And the pace is not slowing down.

Foreclosures are hitting Dem demographics HARD due to their disprportionate share of subprime loans.  Minorities are the primary recepients of subprime loans. 

"The survey focused on lending to minority urban markets in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Charlotte, and Rochester, N.Y. In six of these seven urban areas, high-risk lenders' market share in minority neighborhoods was at least three times the share in white neighborhoods."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2008-03-06-minority-foreclose_N.htm

Since voter registration is residence-based, being run out of one's home makes it harder to vote.  While states do allow a workaround for those who are homeless (permanent absentee status is one), it does not negate the fact that many people who registered as Democrat in the primaries are probably far from their original place of registration and thus, in many cases, unable to vote.  Also, states that performed voter registration clean up may have added to this slow leaking of the Dem registration balloon. 

When you look at the places hardest hit by foreclosures, looking by state is not going to help us much.  One of the changes worrying the GOP the most is the influx of minority and Democrat voters to once solid-GOP counties.  I think subprime loans enabled that transformation to happen where people who can't typically afford to live in the suburbs could do so.   Now that that rug has been pulled under these new set of voters, the GOP has gained that slight sliver of hope.  Due to the mortgage crisis, what was once favorable Dem territory ready for taking, may be solidly Repbulican again.  According to a Census study done in 1999, an individual with same residence after 5 years is TWO TIMES more likely to vote than someone who lives in the same address for less than one year. 

"Homeowners are nearly 40 percent more likely to vote than those who rent or do not own their homes. With a greater length of time at the same residence, individuals are more likely to vote. For example, those who have been at their current address for more than five years are almost two times as likely to vote as those who have lived at their current residence for less than one year."

As the dark clouds gather on the horizon, it may look to Republicans as if a hurricane is about to strike them, but I think that the perfect storm gathering for Democrats may end up to be another SoCal sprinkle.