As experts take issue with a lack of enthusiasm for the Biden administration brand and the Democratic Party in general, Democrats' voter registration advantage has declined in three key battleground states: Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nevada, and Vice President Harris A red light is raised.
In Arizona, another key battleground state, Republicans have a significant voter registration advantage, making it even more difficult for Harris to take over the state that President Biden narrowly won in 2020. There is a possibility.
Other presidential battleground states, such as Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, do not register voters by party.
The shift in voter registration away from Democrats in Pennsylvania and North Carolina may explain why the Harris campaign has focused on issues like fracking and tax policy.
Although Democrats' voter registration advantage has declined in Nevada, unlike in other states, Harris maintains a clear lead over former President Trump in average turnout.
“Looking at changes from 2020 to 2024, the Democratic Party has decreased by about 300,000 voters, while the Republican Party has increased by about 70,000.The number of unaffiliated independent voters has increased by about 83,000 and 85,000. said Burwood Yost, director of the Center for Public Opinion Research at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania.
He said the decline in Democratic voter registration in some parts of Pennsylvania is due to “disillusionment with Washington in power.”
“People are feeling very negative about President Biden's inauguration,” he added. “Yes, that's a red flag and they're trying to fix it.
Yost said declining Democratic voter registration is a challenge for Harris in battleground districts such as Erie, Northampton and Bucks counties, as well as in rural counties such as Fayette, where Trump wants to minimize his margin of victory. he warned.
“That's definitely a red flag, but we knew it was going to be a close race and this is one of those times,” he said.
A Hills Decision Desk analysis of recent Pennsylvania polls shows Harris leading Trump by 1 point in the Keystone State, but both candidates have an equal chance of winning in the state. I am doing it.
David Palaiologos, director of the Center for Political Research at Suffolk University in Boston, said that in 2020, Democrats had a lead of about 666,000 voters over Republicans in Pennsylvania's voter registration numbers, but by 2024 that number could increase to 354,000. He said the difference had shrunk to .
He said Democrats' voter registration advantage in North Carolina has shrunk from +393,000 voters in 2020 to about +130,000 voters in 2024.
“Over the past four years, there has been an overall change from being a registered Democrat,” Paleologos told The Hill.
He explained that “the decline in registered Democrats has been greater than the surge in Republican voter registration.”
“When Trump won North Carolina in 2020, there were another 390,000 or so registered Democrats, and Trump still won, and now the Democratic advantage over Republicans is only about 130,000. I don't think many people take this fact seriously.” Two-thirds of our advantage has been reduced,” he said.
“Despite any gains that Ms. Harris may have had, or any micro-targeting that she may have done…Mr. ,” Paleologos observed of the Tar Heel State.
Lara Putnam, a historian at the University of Pittsburgh who studies election data, said older Democrats are disappearing in Pennsylvania, and other voters once classified as “Reagan Democrats” are also shifting their party affiliation to Republican. He said that is changing.
“The basic net mechanism is that more people move from being registered Democrats to being registered Republicans,” she said.
“The majority of them are what we call Reagan Democrats, who are registered as Democrats but belong to a community that has seen a fairly steady shift toward identifying more with Republicans and adjusting their voting preferences. “These are people who are changing their registration gradually,” she explained. .
“These are people from Rust Belt communities,” she added. “The bigger picture is that the Democratic vote and its ties to old industrial regions are becoming disconnected due to declining union power and a shift in economic dynamism to other regions.”
Democratic strategists in Pennsylvania and North Carolina say their party's voter registration advantage in those two key states has eroded since Biden won Pennsylvania and narrowly lost North Carolina in 2020. I admit that it is true.
They say registered Democrats who voted for Trump and other Republicans have only recently begun changing their party registration, and changes in registration numbers are catching up with voting behavior.
And many new voters who are registered as independents or not affiliated with any political party argue that they are more likely to support Harris than Trump.
“What's happening is that some registered Democrats are changing parties to reflect how they've voted for years. They voted for President Trump in 2020 and changed their registration to Democratic in 2024. to Republican doesn't suggest much about how Pennsylvania's vote will change in 2024,” said J. J. Balaban, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist.
In North Carolina, Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson said younger voters who are more likely to vote for Harris are increasingly registering as independents. And one of the main reasons, he said, is that both sides have bad reputations.
“Yes, Democratic registration has declined and Republican registration has increased slightly, but the truth is that people are only registering as independents. Independents now make up the largest group of voters. ,” Jackson told The Hill. “I have to say, I think it’s because both National Party brands are in the worst shape among voters.
“Especially a lot of first-time new voters. They just don't have loyalty to the party. But what we're seeing is that independent voters, the vast majority of them, are not independents. …Most of them are aligned with one political party or the other,” he said. “There are a small number of people among them who are really ping-pong voters, swing voters.”
The Hill's Decision Desk headquarters gives Trump a 64 percent chance of winning North Carolina, with polling averages in the state giving Trump a one-point lead over Harris.
Paleologos, a professor at Suffolk University, said the gap between the two parties in voter registration is also changing in Arizona and Nevada, other battleground states that are battlegrounds for the president and the U.S. Senate.
Konstantin Keller, an Arizona-based Republican strategist, said Republican leaders and activists are making a concerted effort to increase Republican registration in the state.
“Republicans deserve credit for actually getting out there and doing the on-the-ground work that needed to be done,” he said.
He said Republican voter registration nationwide has increased by 1.2 million people, but Democratic voter registration has decreased by 800,000 people since 2022.
“Nationally, we're talking about a 2 million vote shift to the Republican Party over the last two years,” he said. “Republican brands are outperforming Democratic brands. I don't think it's surprising that we did so well in Arizona.
In Arizona, Republicans doubled their voter registration advantage over Democrats in 2020, when Biden won the state.
“If you look at Arizona, which Biden won…Arizona had a net Republican registration of 130,000 people, and that's doubled. Now the Republican registration advantage in Arizona is 259,000. [people,]” said Paleologos.
Paleologos said this explains why a Suffolk University poll conducted in late September gave Trump a six-point lead over Harris in Arizona.
“I wasn’t surprised that there was a Trump-plus-six state in Arizona,” he said. “Considering all the factors, it made sense to me.”
In Nevada, Paleologos said Democrats are seeing their voter registration advantage slip away.
He said Democrats had a net advantage of 29,000 more registered voters in 2020.
“It could be enough to keep it close, or it could be in Trump's hands, just because there are 50,000 fewer net registered Democrats,” he said.
John Ralston, CEO of the Nevada Independent and the state's leading political commentator, said the Democratic voter advantage in Nevada was about 5 points in 2020, but now said that it has become 1 point.
“This isn't because the Rupee gained, it's just that they lost far fewer voters as Indian voters exploded. Still, it's a concern for Democrats,” he wrote in an email to The Hill. I wrote it in
In a recent column, Ralston said “changes” in enrollment in Clark County, Nevada's most populous county, make Democrats “obviously vulnerable.”
Between October 1 and October 9, Republicans gained at least 1,118 more people registered than Democrats in Clark County.
This is very different from what happened in the first nine days of October in 2018, 2020, and 2022. In each of the previous years, Democrats had gained more than 2,000 more people registered than Republicans in the county.
Clark County has a population of over 2.3 million people, making up more than two-thirds of the state's total population. Biden won the state by a margin of 33,500 votes.
