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Republican voter registration is surging in a key battleground state GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump won in 2016 but lost to Democratic nominee Joe Biden in 2020.
According to a report by Reuters, newly updated registration data shows that Pennsylvania Republicans are registering former Democrats at four times the rate as Democrats are registering former Republicans, which the newswire deemed a major “warning sign for Democrats” as they attempt to hold onto the majority in the state’s congressional delegation:
The Republican gains in Pennsylvania, home to a critical U.S. Senate race, follow a pattern seen in other states that could have competitive contests in November’s elections, as high levels of disapproval with President Joe Biden’s handling of his job are helping narrow the long-held advantage held by Democrats in numbers of registered voters.
Reuters examined registration data in six states that could see tight U.S. Senate races in November and which generally require voters to be members of a party to participate in nominating contests. While each state tracks voter registration differently, the review pointed to Republican gains in four of those states, and no substantial difference in two of them.
Nowhere is the Republican advance in voter registration more evident than in Pennsylvania…
“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 re-registered as a Republican, formally ending her 30-year affiliation with the Democratic Party.
She went on to cite major increases in inflation and violent crime as the driving forces behind making the switch.
According to Breitbart News, Democrats still outnumber Republicans in the Keystone State 4 million registered voters to 3.4 million, but that is the smallest Democrat advantage since 2005.
“Voters are looking elsewhere for leadership because Susan Wild’s and Democrats’ toxic agenda has made life more difficult than ever for Pennsylvania families,” said CLF press secretary Cally Perkins, according to the outlet.
“This is bad news for the Democrats,” Kevan Yenerall, a political scientist at Clarion University in Clarion, Pa., told Reuters.
Even in blue Philadelphia, Republicans are making inroads.
“Voter data shows that 1,315 Democrats in the city have filed forms this year to change their party registration to Republican, more than four times the number of Republicans making the opposite switch,” Reuters reported.
Calvin Tucker, deputy chair for the Pennsylvania Republican Party, told the newswire that the party’s gains point towards a strong showing for the GOP. He said the state party is working to expand voter outreach in black communities and others that are underserved, which so far this year have produced 100 converts.
“It is a citywide outreach,” Tucker said. “We will do canvassing, knocking on doors, standing on corners, and talking to citizens and neighbors about who we are and what we are trying to achieve.”
Two other states trending red including Nevada and Florida, the latter of which now has more Republican voters registered than Democrats for the first time in the state’s history.
“With Texas the only state locked in for the GOP holding more than 20 votes, they have consistently needed to land well over half of the votes available in battleground states just to eke out narrow victories in the three races they have won in the 21st century – George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, and Donald Trump in 2016,” Liberty Nation reported this week.
“That is why the latest news from Florida resounds with significance well beyond the boundaries of the Sunshine State. The Florida Board of Elections has revealed that, for the first time in at least the 30 years for which data is available – and likely ever – Republicans now outnumber Democrats by more than 100,000 in what has long been considered arguably the single most important swing state in the nation, now upgraded to 30 electoral votes after the latest census,” the report added.
