PA: Should Dems Be Concerned As GOP Continues Voter Registration Gains?

[RandySF]

It may be time for Democrats to become concerned as Republicans continue to pick up ground in voter registration after the first month of 2024.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of State figures from February 12, while Democrats lost 752 names from voter rolls, the GOP picked up 13,647 for a net gain of 12,895. Democrats continue to hold an overall edge over Republicans in the Keystone State by nearly 420,000.

Democrats: 3,893,342 (44.8%)
Republicans: 3,475,267 (40.0%)
No Affiliation: 969, 270 (11.2%)
Other Parties: 343,855 (3.9%)
Total: 8,681,734


The state GOP has also shown strength in other key metrics, including 15,165 new or change applications, while Democrats (8,355) and others (4,379) make up the remainder of the 27,899 total since the start of the year. And 7,258 Democrats have switched party affiliation to Republican thus far in 2024, while just 1,474 have gone the other way.




https://www.politicspa.com/should-dems-be-concerned-as-gop-continues-voter-registration-gains/131673/

[femmedem]

1. It might be people changing registration in order to vote against Trump in the primary.

Pennsylvania has closed primaries, so people may decide that their vote will have more weight in a Republican than Democratic presidential primary this year.

[DFW]

3. That can't be counted out

The “Alabama in the middle” of PA still can’t overcome the majority of Democrats in the east and west of the state. So far, anyway. Trump is not popular there. On all his great promises if the 2016 campaign, he delivered on none of them. The rust belt continued rusting away.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. Please save yourselves, Pennsylvanians. Don't regress!

[Deminpenn]

4. Registrations are just catching up to how people vote

Last edited Tue Feb 13, 2024, 08:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Here in western PA, outside of Allegheny County, it's R country when the votes are counted, but the Ds, until recently, held a registration advantage in my county. The gains just reflect the voting preferences now.

I'm sure some of the switches might be to vote in one party's or the other's primary or in an area that's heavily one party or the other. The primary is essentially the general election. If voters want to have a say in the local government, the primary is the time to vote.

However, there is still a good bit of ticket-splitting in PA.