ERIE, Pa. — Democrats have been losing voters in Pennsylvania over the past four years, and Republicans are salivating over the prospect of former President Donald Trump recapturing the biggest swing state in the Nov. 5 election.
Nearly 300,000 registered Democrats have dropped off the rolls since 2020, and Republicans have netted about 50,000 new registered voters in a state that President Biden won by roughly 80,000 votes.
In Luzerne County, near Mr. Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Democrats held a 20,000 registered voter advantage in 2020. As of last week, they trail Republicans by a few hundred votes. Mr. Trump won the county in 2020 and is expected to steamroll it this year.
“We have flipped the county red,” said Gene Ziemba, the county’s Republican Party chairman. “So not only are we going to win, we’re going to smoke them.”
The change in registration is almost all on the Democratic side. Luzerne County had about 106,000 Democratic voters in 2020 and about 86,000 in the latest tally on Sept 23. Republican registration rose from 86,000 to 87,000. Independent and other third-party voters stayed roughly the same.
Democrats’ numbers slid from about 4.2 million to 3.9 million statewide. Republicans gained about 50,000 voters to reach nearly 3.6 million. Independents showed the biggest movement, with about 95,000 new voters, climbing past 1.4 million.
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Democrats hope most of those independents are Republicans with Trump fatigue. Others assume it has more to do with a new law automatically encouraging people to complete or update their voter registration when they obtain or renew a driver’s license.
“The voter registration gains for Republicans in Pennsylvania, including in some key counties, is, of course, welcome news for the GOP in perhaps the most pivotal state in the cycle,” said Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. “The more narrow Democratic advantage in registered voters does ease the pressure on Republicans to overperform among their base voters in the state.”
Although many analysts are fixated on polling data, the registration numbers offer an alternative look at political strength.
That has generally been good news for the Republican Party nationwide.
Republican Party registration has grown faster than the Democratic Party in the swing states of Arizona, North Carolina and Nevada — where voters register by party. Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia, the other battleground states, do not require party registration.
Democrats celebrated last month when singer Taylor Swift endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and encouraged fans to register and vote. In her announcement, she linked a government website that recorded hundreds of thousands of visits, though it’s unclear how many followed through to register.
Democrats also celebrated a rise in registrations after Ms. Harris replaced Mr. Biden as the Democratic Party candidate.
Republicans attribute their registration numbers in Pennsylvania to a Trump-inspired populist message on the economy, immigration and trade, as well as a rejection of Democrats on the cultural front, including transgender issues.
Democrats say they don’t read too much into the numbers.
Working-class voters may just be changing their registration to match how they were already voting when they backed Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020, said John Cordisco, a former Democratic Party chairman in Bucks County, one of the populous “collar counties” around Philadelphia.
“I don’t know if party registration gives you any idea what the outcome is going to be,” he said.
Although Republicans have netted about 13,000 new voters compared with Democrats in Bucks County since 2020, Mr. Cordisco said Democrats have performed well in local elections. That includes defending their majority on the county commission last year.
“So if they had made such strides, that should not have happened,” Mr. Cordisco said.
Jim Wertz, a Democrat running for state Senate in a district that could swing control of the chamber, gets an up-close look when he is knocking on doors in Erie in the northwest corner of the state.
“I think there are more Trump signs out than there were in 2016. But I don’t think it’s changed the aggregate number of Trump voters,” Mr. Wertz said. “I don’t think there’s more people to the party. I think he’s actually lost people.”
Both parties in Erie have lost registered voters. Democrats have lost about 18,000, and Republicans have lost about 7,000.
The rise in voters not affiliated with either major party matches a national trend, and some analysts said it is tricky to draw any conclusions from the party numbers.
Mr. Cordisco said independents, at least in Bucks County, are more likely to vote for Democrats.
“While Pennsylvania Republicans continue to throw up roadblocks to voting, including by trying to ban the use of drop boxes and drop-off sites, Democrats are talking to Pennsylvanians about the issues that matter to them and deploying resources like IWillVote.com to make sure every eligible Pennsylvanian can cast their ballot,” Democratic National Committee spokesperson Addy Toevs said in a statement. “We aren’t taking a single vote for granted, and we’ll continue to invest in voter outreach in every county to get out the vote for the Harris-Walz ticket and Democrats up and down the ballot.”
Charlie Gerow, a Harrisburg-based Republican Party strategist, said Democrats are mistaken if they don’t think the improvement in Republican Party registration is a problem.
“That is eating a gloomy sandwich on happy bread,” he said, borrowing a phrase from conservative icon Jack Kemp.
Mr. Gerow said it is impossible to write off the shift in voter registration solely on the realignment of White working-class voters who were registered Democrats but have been voting Republican.
“There is a wave of new voters and younger voters who are registering in numbers far greater for Republicans than Democrats,” he said.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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