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We looked at state-wide registration shifts since 2016 and found that Republicans in PA are gaining voters at five times the rate of Democrats. w/ @Elaijuh @ByChrisBrennan https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/pennsylvania-party-voter-registration-trump-biden-20200729.html
Since 2016, Republicans have added about 165,000 net voters, while Democrats added only about 30,000. Democrats still maintain a 800,000-voter edge over Republicans. But that’s down from 936,000 in 2016, when Trump still won the state by less than 1%.
Democrats have continued adding voters in the state's most populous county (Philly and the suburbs). Republicans are adding voters everywhere else, in small and mid-sized counties where many longtime Democrats are switching their registrations.
What it all means for November is unclear. The registration math should make it harder for Biden than it was for Clinton in PA but he's a better-liked candidate and Trump has plummeted in the polls lately. https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/pennsylvania-2020-election-joe-biden-donald-trump-polls-20200726.html
Many county party leaders interviewed said the shift reflects a lot of Democrats who voted for Trump in 2016 making their registration change official - not necessarily that it signals new Trump voters.
And one in seven voters in PA (14 %) is Independent or third party.
But registration shifts do correlate with presidential voting. In the 2004 through 2016 elections, vote share for the two major parties’ nominees in Pennsylvania’s 67 counties moved in the same direction as voter registrations did 88% of the time @Elaijuh found.
