SALEM — More than 11,000 registered Republicans in Oregon, or 1.4%, have left the party since Election Day, state voter registration figures show.

Some of those departures were likely the result of administrative actions to correct voter rolls to reflect voters known to have died, left the state or otherwise lost qualification to vote. Statewide registration totals also reflect a loss of almost 8,500 registered Democrats, or 0.8%, since early November.

But it is clear that an unusually large number of voters have disavowed their Republican Party identities, particularly in Washington County, where the number of Republicans fell by nearly 1,900, or 2.3%, over the past two months.

Most of the Republican defectors appear to have rejected all party affiliation, rather than moved to a different party. Oregon’s count of unaffiliated voters rose by more than 10,000 since Election Day, records show.

One of Oregon’s highest profile Republicans, former gubernatorial nominee Knute Buehler, told the New York Times he canceled his Republican Party registration recently after the Republican Party of Oregon issued a statement condemning the 10 Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach President Donald Trump and aligning itself with conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Long a moderate in his party, Buehler cast himself as an all-out supporter of Trump during his unsuccessful May 2020 primary race for Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives won by Ontario Republican Cliff Bentz.

According to the Times, Buehler called quitting the Republican party “very painful.”