Similar to the Party Switchers target that is available, the Party Switchers' Custom Field aims to provide more holistic data about those voters who are switching the party on their voter registration and when.
While a new Target is created for each voter file update with the parties the voter moved 'To, From', this Custom Field aims to make that data more searchable by date and party.
As shown below, users will be able to go to 'Create A List' and search on a Date Range (similar to how they can with Age & Voter Registration) plus the way in which the person's registration changed.
An added benefit of migrating to this custom field for Party Switchers is the ability to see the exact voter file when the registration changed in the voter's profile, which is shown in the screenshot below. When it comes to list building, if a user includes a certain date range in their universe (such as any party switch beginning in 2021 through 2022), all new party switchers will be added to that saved search. On a similar note, if a user wants to included everyone in a certain registration change in the universe (Republican to Democrat, for instance), everyone who made that switch will appear after each update.
With this Custom Field, the KDP Data Team will be migrating all Party Switchers' data to this field; Party Switchers' for the remainder of 2021 will be added to new targets but those targets will be deprecated after the end of the year and removed after the first voter file update of 2022.
After each voter file update has processed and been loaded into Votebuilder, the KDP Data Team will identify Party Switchers in the DNC data warehouse and then import them into MyVoters.
To view the total number of voters who switched party by voter file update, please visit: https://kydemocratshelp.freshdesk.com/en/support/solutions/articles/44002218342-voter-file-updates-tracker-trends.