What a difference a few weeks can make.
Just three weeks ago, Pennsylvania Republicans were cruising along as they continued to eat into the Democratic Party’s registration advantage in the Keystone State. Of course, that last voter registration update happened to be published right after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris.
So, ahead of this week’s Democratic National Convention, we wanted to take a first look at whether Harris’ ascension caused any noticeable change in the numbers. As you can see in the map above, some of the commonwealth’s bluest counties are finally starting to get excited about this presidential contest.
Before we get into that, though, let’s take a quick look at the overall numbers. Pennsylvania Democrats were able to reverse their slide – they lost 2,214 registrants between April and July for instance – and actually added 11,650 registrants in the past three weeks.
On the other hand, over that same period of time Republicans collected 16,425 registrants while Independent and third parties brought in 11,871.
As a result, the Democratic Party’s statewide advantage continued to shrink, from 360,982 to 356,207.
Yet within all these statewide numbers, we’re already seeing some intriguing county trends that give us crucial hints of the campaign ahead. Let’s dive in.
A quick note: I explore our changing voter trends by tracking the gains one party accumulated in registrations over the other party. For example, R+500 means that the Republican Party gained a net 500 more registered voters in that county than the Democratic Party did over this period, while D+500 indicates the opposite.
CENTRAL
- Blair: R+86
- Bradford: R+148
- Cameron: R+4
- Centre: R+96
- Clearfield: R+144
- Clinton: R+45
- Columbia: R+84
- Elk: R+65
- Huntingdon: R+61
- Juniata: R+40
- Lycoming: R+94
- McKean: R+41
- Mifflin: R+83
- Montour: R+29
- Northumberland: R+97
- Potter: R+33
- Snyder: R+40
- Sullivan: R+10
- Tioga: R+57
- Union: R+13
For this region, I always pay particular attention to Centre and Union Counties – the homes of Penn State and Bucknell universities – as a gauge of student voters. Since school still isn’t back in session, however, we’ll just have to wait until next time to get an accurate read on how students are affecting registration.
NORTHEAST
- Carbon: R+88
- Lackawanna: R+175
- Luzerne: R+328
- Monroe: R+88
- Pike: R+59
- Schuylkill: R+184
- Susquehanna: R+55
- Wayne: R+118
- Wyoming: R+8
With Scranton Joe off the ballot, Former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee, is bound to work this corner of the state even harder. He’s already made Wilkes-Barre one of his regular campaign stops, and he’s coming back to the city on Saturday. This strategy makes sense, as the ancestrally Democratic corridor that runs through Lackawanna and Luzerne is arguably his most appealing target for November.
NORTHWEST
- Clarion: R+88
- Crawford: R+105
- Erie: R+165
- Forest: R+13
- Jefferson: R+79
- Mercer: R+186
- Venango: R+33
- Warren: R+43
Another encouraging sign for the GOP came in Erie, an Obama-Trump-Biden county where Pennsylvania Republicans continue to make gains. If Trump’s going to win back the Keystone State, he’ll need to post record margins even in these rural Northwest counties.
SOUTH CENTRAL
- Adams: R+148
- Bedford: R+84
- Cumberland: R+71
- Dauphin: D+39
- Franklin: R+108
- Fulton: R+40
- Lancaster: R+350
- Lebanon: R+107
- Perry: R+47
- York: R+460
Democrats made their first breakthrough in Dauphin County, home to the capital city of Harrisburg. The Harris-Walz team will try to break Obama’s 2008 high-water mark here, and get as close as they can to flipping Cumberland, which is just over the Susquehanna River.
Meanwhile, Republicans must be heartened to see those gains in Lancaster and York, the most populated red counties in the commonwealth. In recent years, Democrats have managed to do surprisingly well in these two counties – Gov. Josh Shapiro nearly won Lancaster in 2022 – and the Harris campaign is actively aiming to cut down Trump’s margin here.
SOUTHEAST
- Berks: R+374
- Bucks: R+270
- Chester: D+353
- Delaware: D+316
- Lehigh: D+13
- Montgomery: D+439
- Northampton: R+171
- Philadelphia: D+1,682
As one might expect, the largest shift of all came in Philadelphia, perhaps aided by last week’s Harris-Walz rally at Temple University. The Pennsylvania Democratic Party also saw gains in three of Philly’s four collar counties, where the Harris-Walz team will need massive margins to win the Commonwealth’s crucial 19 electoral votes.
Conversely, Republicans continue to post impressive numbers in Bucks, which flipped to a GOP plurality last month for the first since spring 2008. They’re also making up ground in Northampton, the state’s other Obama-Trump-Biden county.
At the same time, the party did see a bit of slippage in neighboring Lehigh, which is worth keeping an eye on. If Harris is indeed picking up steam among the state’s Hispanic voters, we’ll see signs of it in the Lehigh Valley.
SOUTHWEST
- Allegheny: D+31
- Armstrong: R+127
- Beaver: R+222
- Butler: R+400
- Cambria: R+314
- Fayette: R+268
- Greene: R+68
- Indiana: R+114
- Lawrence: R+164
- Somerset: R+84
- Washington: R+172
- Westmoreland: R+400
Once again, Republicans posted some of their strongest gains in the Appalachian region of the state: the once ancestral Democratic southwest that helped power Donald Trump to victory eight years ago. The one exception is Allegheny County, where Dems are at last gearing up for November, when they’ll try to break the 60% barrier for the first time since 1964.
To that point, Harris and Walz are kicking off a bus tour in Pittsburgh Sunday, with other stops in Pennsylvania reportedly planned. This pre-convention trek actually mirrors a post-convention journey that Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine took together across the commonwealth in 2016. Undoubtedly, the 2024 team is hoping for more success with this trip.
So what do these results tell us? Well, there are some real signs of hope for Pennsylvania Democrats, as Harris’ nomination is inspiring palpable enthusiasm for the first time in this election cycle. But the Pennsylvania GOP has considerable momentum less than three months out from Election Night. We’ll just have to keep watching these numbers until then.
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