The Democratic Party is losing its edge over the GOP in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, with Democrats changing their party affiliation at more than twice the rate of Republicans, according to state data released after voter registration ended Monday evening.
A total of 9,088,583 registered voters were tallied across the state when the sign-up period ended at midnight on Monday. Registered Democrats maintained a lead over registered Republicans, at 3,971,607 registered Democrats to the GOP’s 3,673,783.
More than 1.4 million voters are registered as third-party or independent voters in the Keystone State.
Though the Democratic Party accounts for nearly 44% of registered voters compared to the GOP’s 40%, it has seen its advantage over Republicans dwindle this year.
In 2020, there were 9,090,962 registered voters across the parties in Pennsylvania, only slightly more than the 9,088,583 voters registered this cycle.
President Biden won the state in 2020 by 1.17 percentage points. That year, Democrats had a larger margin of registered voters compared to their Republican counterparts, at 4.2 million to 3.5 million. The data show that Democrats had a registration advantage over Republicans by 685,818 voters during an election Biden won by 80,555 votes.
The GOP has whittled down that lead this year to a 297,824 margin. When comparing registered voters this election year to 2020, Democrats face a net loss of 257,281 voters, while Republicans have a net gain of 428,537 registered voters.
More than double the number of previously registered Democrats changed their party affiliation this cycle compared to the number of registered Republicans who left the party: 54,668 registered Democrats changed their party affiliation compared to 25,634 Republicans, Pennsylvania Department of State data shows.
The data is broken down by county, with Philadelphia notably reporting 18,928 Democrats changed their party affiliation compared to just 3,401 Republicans doing the same. Bucks County, which sits outside of the City of Brotherly Love, reported 2,089 Democrats changed their party affiliation compared to 1,624 Republicans. In Allegheny County, home to the state’s second-largest city of Pittsburgh, 6,564 Democrats changed their party affiliation while 2,202 Republicans did the same.
The registered voter data comes after reports surfaced that concerns were mounting within the Democratic Party that the Harris campaign is failing to effectively connect with voters in Pennsylvania.
Poor campaign management and staffers lacking relationships with Democratic political leaders in the Keystone State are allegedly rocking the campaign, Politico reported last week. The outlet reported that Democrats are worried that the campaign’s state manager lacks an understanding of Philadelphia, the state’s largest city, while campaign staffers have allegedly not invited local Democratic politicians to events in the state, and have not effectively deployed surrogates.
Pennsylvania is touted as the state that will likely determine the outcome of the general election on Nov. 5. A Fox News survey of Pennsylvania voters published late last month found Harris narrowly ahead of Trump by 2 points (50-48%) among registered voters, while the race is tied at 49% each among likely voters.