Nearly 19k Pennsylvania voters have left the GOP since the Capitol attack

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/billy_penn/status/1363873835771117572

[wbrocks67]

http://ballot-access.org/2021/02/11/new-pennsylvania-registration-data-2/

Pennsylvania Elections Department has released the first registration totals for any minor parties since February 2020. The new figures are: Democratic 4,075,927; Republican 3,458,241; Libertarian 46,037; Green 10,240; independent and miscellaneous 1,222,818.

The percentages are: Democratic 46.25%; Republican 39.24%; Libertarian .52%; Green .12%; independent and miscellaneous 13.87%.

In February 2020, the percentages were: Democratic 47.45%; Republican 38.19%; Libertarian .47%; Green .12%; independent and miscellaneous 13.77%.

The 2021 registration numbers above are as of February 1st I think.

As a longtime reader of Ballot Access News which has always reported these numbers when they are released, I'm amused by the media's and this message board's sudden interest in politcal party registration as well as how they only report one side of it. We're completely ignoring how over 1 year the Democrats are down more than 1% and the Republicans are up more than 1%.

People on this board I expect to be one-eyed, journalists however should be held to a higher standard. I might be in the mood to call journalists out for being water carriers.

If you read the article, it's all based on data. It's just going off of the normal trends. The data says there IS more of a switch off than usual, and it compares numerous years past. General registration trends are still going on in PA, but the fact that are so many *switchers* is notable

[wbrocks67]

That being said, I've been tracking PA data by congressional district. Here is what the #s are now, compared to right before the election (Oct 20, 2020):

PA-01
10/20/20: Dems 234,272 / Reps 218,515 (Dems +15,757)
2/16/21: Dems 234,863 / Reps 218,307 (Dems +16,556)

PA-04
10/20/20: Dems 260,348 / Reps 189,063 (Dems +71,285)
2/21: Dems 255,882 / Reps 184,451 (Dems +71,431)

PA-05
10/20/20: Dems 283,037 / Reps 176,292 (Dems +106,745)
2/16/21: Dems 272,656 / Reps 169,113 (Dems +103,543)

PA-06
10/20/20: Dems 223,003 / Reps 196,998 (Dems +26,005)
2/16/21: Dems 216,173 / Reps 190,780 (Dems +25,393)

PA-07
10/20/20: Dems 239,549 / Reps 178,524 (Dems +61,025)
2/16/21: Dems 230,608 / Reps 173,799 (Dems +56,809)

PA-08
10/20/20: Dems 238,686 / Reps 179,685 (Dems +59,001)
2/16/21: Dems 234,320 / Reps 178,354 (Dems +55,966)

PA-10
10/20/20: Dems 210,193 / Reps 232,174 (Reps +21,981)
2/16/21: Dems 205,752 / Reps 227,897 (Reps +22,145)

PA-16
10/20/20: Dems 200,817 / Reps 221,207 (Reps +20,390)
2/16/21: Dems 186,542 / Reps 214,565 (Reps +28,023)

PA-17
10/20/20: Dems 261,288 / Reps 199,037 (Dems +62,251)
2/16/21: Dems 257,383 / Reps 196,309 (Dems +61,074)

#s kind of seem funky in general, b/c it also seems like there was a major purging of the voter rolls or something, with many districts losing up to or more than 10,000 voters.

But like we've talked about before, the *overall* trend of PA makes sense. Dems are still up 600K because there is still Reps who are registered as Dems. That gap is going to increasingly shrink, but it doesn't mean the dynamic of the state is really changing from where it's been going. People are just making their registration what they've identified as for a while now.

Which makes it the more interesting that there is more REP>INDIE or REP>DEM switchers right now than DEM>REP, which is what the article is pointing out