More former Democrats registering as Republicans in the state than vice versa.
QUICK FACTS:
- Republicans are registering as former Democratic voters at four times the rate that Democrats are making the reverse conversion in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Reuters reports.
- The revelation signifies a warning sign for Democrats as they try to hold control of the U.S. Congress.
- Republican gains in Pennsylvania, also home to a crucial U.S. Senate race, follow a pattern noticed in other states that could have close contests in November’s elections, high levels of disapproval with Joe Biden’s handling of his job helping narrow the long-held advantage held by Democrats in numbers of registered voters.
- “I just got fed up and just felt like there has to be a better way,” said Beth Jones, 48, a retired Philadelphia police officer who last month registered as a Republican, ending her three-decade affiliation with the Democratic Party.
PENNSYLVANIA GOING RED:
- Republican advance in voter registration is most evident in Pennsylvania, where Republicans have converted four Democrats for every Republican who has switched to the Democratic Party, according to Pennsylvania’s Department of State data.
- The move signifies the highest conversion rate in at least a decade, and well above 2016, when Republicans took the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate.
- “This is bad news for the Democrats,” said Kevan Yenerall, a political scientist at Clarion University in Clarion, Pennsylvania.
- Registered Democrats still outnumber registered Republicans by more than half a million in Pennsylvania—4 million Democrats to 3.4 million Republicans as of March 28—the long-held Democratic advantage continues to narrow and is on pace to be the smallest in a general election since 2005, according to Reuters.
BACKGROUND:
- Registration data in six states that could witness close U.S. Senate races in November and which generally require voters to be members of a party to participate in nominating contests point to Republican gains in four of those states, Reuters notes.
- If Republicans were to retake control of either chamber of Congress in the Nov 8 midterm elections, they would have the power to bring Biden’s legislative agenda to a halt.
- North Carolina also expects a tight Senate race, where Republicans so far this year have picked up three Democratic converts for every voter that Democrats have poached, according to state election board data.
- Florida and Nevada are also seeing numbers of registered Republicans rise in the first few months of 2022, while the ranks of Democrats have declined modestly.
- In New Hampshire and Arizona, the removal of inactive voters from registration rolls has led both parties to lose similar numbers of voters in recent months.
