Pennsylvania's independent voters surge, despite being locked out of primaries
Temporarily joining a political party is the only way Malinowski and independent voters can participate in primaries, because Pennsylvania is one of a few states to exclude them from the process of selecting party nominees.
Some voting advocates warn that closed primaries, coupled with America’s dominant two-party system, essentially disenfranchise the fastest-growing group of the commonwealth’s electorate.
The proportion of Pennsylvanians registered as independent or third-party voters has steadily risen from 12% in the 2005 general election to 16% in 2025, according to data from the Department of State.
And the data shows the growth of those voters over the last two decades outpaces both major parties. Registered Democrats dropped to 43% of all Pennsylvania voters last year, after a high of 51% in 2011. Republicans’ gains, on the rise since 2015, brought their share of voters to 41% last year, rectifying a dip in registrations to match their percentage in 2005.
https://www.witf.org/2026/02/01/pennsylvanias-independent-voters-surge-despite-being-locked-out-of-primaries/
= new reply since forum marked as read
... while all along they will vote for the other party's candidate when it comes to the general election.
I've been living in Pittsburgh for the last 35+ years and I have personally known people who do this. In most cases they are R voters, but they register as a D, just so they can participate in the Democratic primary. Their goal is to select the "weakest" D candidate in the primary voting, in order to give their R candidate a better chance in the general election.
Do some D voters do this also? Maybe a few, but I haven't heard of any.
For some reason the voter polls never cover this PA phenomenon, but it must be driving them crazy. It destroys all believability in the advance polling of voters.
