The new gTLD political race is about to start to being

The first political extension to roll out will be .Democrat which is launching into general availability on Wednesday May 21st.

The extension is owned by Rightside part of  Demand Media, Inc (DMD), a publicly held company  not affiliated with any political party.

The retail price, depending on registrar is expected to be under $40.

According to Demand Media,”.DEMOCRAT appeals to elected officials, candidates, political enthusiasts, or anyone who simply identifies with Democratic values. There are 2.2 million monthly searches for the word “Democrat,” and there are 43 million registered Democrats in the U.S.”

According to a 2010, Gallup poll, 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, 29% as Republicans, and 38% as independents.

By 2011 Gallup found that Americans identifying as independents had risen to 40 percent.

Monthly Rasmussen Reports tracking of partisan trends found that in June 2012, 35.4% identified as Republicans, 34.0% as Democrats and 30.5% were unaffiliated

.GOP registry is being run by The Republican State Leadership Committee, a group that seeks to elect Republicans to state-level offices.

The .GOP domain extension will be available for registration starting July 7th.   I can’t find any exact pricing details but I believe the retail price will be less than that of .Democrat and of .Republican

Demand Media, Inc. also applied for the domain extension .Republican which appears to have a retail price of less than $30 depending on the registrar.

There is no official launch date set yet for .Republican but we would expect it will launch this year.

Outside of candidates I guess the bug question is how many other people, political junkies, news organizations and bloggers will pay to own any of these domains.

More people in the United States regard themselves as being an independent than as a Republican or Democrat.

That brings us to the new gTLD’s .Vote and .Voto which are launching in the 4th quarter of this year by Afilias.

Roland LaPlante, Afilias Senior Vice President and CMO, is quoted as saying:

“Today, politicians and voters must be confident that accurate and genuine campaign information is easily discoverable online. Too often, however, politicians have found Internet addresses related to their own names being fielded by opposing campaigns or cybersquatters. The new .VOTE domain solves that issue permanently.”  The .VOTO domain is designed specifically to help politicians and candidates reach the USA’s extensive, increasingly influential Latino population. .VOTO will have the same verification assurances that come with a .VOTE domain”

There is no pricing yet for .vote or .voto (which we will combine into one for purposes of the poll)

The question for today is which one of these new political extensions will have the most registrations a year after the last one launches?

You can vote on the poll on the right and for bragging rights place your picks as comments below as well.