Calling for the focus in Salt Lake City's mayoral race to shift from partisanship to the issues, candidate Keith Christensen has dumped his affiliation with the Republican Party.

"I grew tired of being labeled," the former City Council member said Monday. "I've always been an independent thinker, and I think it's only fair the citizens of Salt Lake get to see who I am."

The mayor's office is officially nonpartisan. However, partisan identification is often a focal point in the campaigns, as many candidates have clear-cut party loyalties from having previously served in partisan elected offices. Salt Lake voters have not elected a Republican mayor since Jake Garn in 1971.

"It's a nonpartisan race, but people have been conditioned over time with the partisan thought," Christensen said. "When I tell people in the communities and on doorsteps that I am an independent, they're fine. They like it. They hope that someone with leadership skills will think independently and be balanced."

Since July 2006, when Christensen announced he would run and Mayor Rocky Anderson threw his support behind his candidacy, Christensen has faced questions about his GOP affiliation. Although Christensen has maintained that he is ideologically independent, he remained registered as a Republican until Friday.

"I am not any different today than I was last week," he said. "I've always been fiscally conservative. I'm socially progressive. I believe most people in this city would say the same thing."

The change leaves only one registered Republican — current Councilman Dave Buhler — in the race's top tier, with House Minority Leader Ralph Becker and Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson the most popular Democrats. In an April poll by Dan Jones & Associates, Wilson had the most support among city residents, at 20 percent; Buhler had the backing of 13 percent; Becker had 9 percent; Nancy Saxton, who has since dropped out of the race, had 5 percent; and Christensen had 4 percent.

Christensen's competitors discount the impact his party change will have on the race.

"I don't know what it changes," Becker said. "Keith obviously was no longer comfortable with his affiliation with the Republican Party."

For his part, Buhler dismissed the assumption that a Republican identification is a liability in Salt Lake politics.

"I recognize that some people believe you cannot be elected if you're LDS and Republican, let alone both," he said. "But if I believed that, I wouldn't be in this race. People want to know who we are. I'm not running as a Republican, but I'm not running away from being a Republican."

Political observer Kirk Jowers, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, said he talked to Christensen about the question of his affiliation over lunch a few months ago.