Key: Navy – D+5,000 or more, Blue – D+1,001 to D+4,999, Light Skyblue – D+1 to D+1,000. Light Salmon – R+1 to R+1,000, Red – R+1,001 to R+4,999, Maroon – R+5,000 or more. (Map by Nick Field via Dave’s Redistricting)
We’re only about a month away now from Pennsylvania’s October 21st voter registration deadline and Republicans continue to make gains statewide. Now this won’t come as a surprise to anyone who follows my regular updates, since the Pennsylvania GOP has spent the last decade or so chipping away at the Democratic Party’s once massive registration advantage.
Just over the past month, for instance, that edge has declined from 356,207 to 343,071. This was due not so much to Democratic erosion, as the party actually added 23,711 registrants during this time, but because Republicans outpaced them by gaining 36,847 registrants.
A glance at the map, however, will reveal that amidst that overarching story, there are many tales to tell about the trends across the commonwealth. So 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+438
Bradford: R+281
Cameron: R+14
Centre: D+55
Clearfield: R+336
Clinton: R+222
Columbia: R+242
Elk: R+161
Huntingdon: R+176
Juniata: R+99
Lycoming: R+296
McKean: R+171
Mifflin: R+275
Montour: R+18
Northumberland: R+284
Potter: R+43
Snyder: R+115
Sullivan: R+38
Tioga: R+145
Union: D+11
Over the past month, the fall semester kicked off at colleges throughout the nation and we can see the effect here in the blue tint for Centre and Union Counties, home to Penn State and Bucknell universities, respectively. Outside of those campuses, though, the GOP is still racking up registrants in this rural region.
Northeast
Carbon: R+282
Lackawanna: R+494
Luzerne: R+809
Monroe: R+248
Pike: R+253
Schuylkill: R+623
Susquehanna: R+219
Wayne: R+298
Wyoming: R+123
Vice President Kamala Harris made a recent campaign stop in Wilkes-Barre, the largest city in Luzerne County and host of many Donald Trump rallies over the past nine years. The Democratic Party is trying to staunch its losses in Luzerne, a county where its May 2015 registration advantage of 45,467 has been reduced to just 233.
With Scranton Joe off of the ballot, Trump has a unique opportunity to pick up votes throughout this region, especially in Lackawanna. However, there remains a danger that the Trump/Vance team’s hostility to Ukraine could hurt them in the heavily Ukrainian-American rural areas out here.
Northwest
Clarion: R+129
Crawford: R+240
Erie: R+311
Forest: R+15
Jefferson: R+157
Mercer: R+341
Venango: R+218
Warren: R+76
A recent USA Today/Suffolk University poll surveyed Erie and Northampton, and found Harris ahead by four in the northwestern corner of the state. To put this in context, Erie has supported the statewide winner in 18 of the 19 post-WWII Presidential elections (Massachusetts Gov. Mike Dukakis in 1988 was the sole exception). I’d expect that this streak will continue come November.
Walz campaigns in Erie, a bellwether Pennsylvania county
South Central
Adams: R+247
Bedford: R+274
Cumberland: R+67
Dauphin: R+28
Franklin: R+344
Fulton: R+75
Lancaster: R+812
Lebanon: R+420
Perry: R+152
York: R+1,048
The South Central was perhaps the most encouraging region for the Trump campaign, as blue trending counties like Cumberland and Dauphin both still posted gains for the GOP. More importantly for the Trump team, though, is its performance in the populous red counties of Lancaster and York. Remember that the Harris campaign is aiming to eat into Trump’s margin in Lancaster particularly – taking Josh Shapiro’s near-victory there in 2022 as inspiration — Harris running mate Tim Walz campaigned here earlier this month.
Southeast
Berks: R+628
Bucks: R+1,316
Chester: D+203
Delaware: D+693
Lehigh: R+456
Montgomery: D+280
Northampton: R+196
Philadelphia: D+4,747
Unsurprisingly, the largest shift of all – and the best one for the Democrats – took place in Philadelphia. Back in July, I noted that Harris will almost certainly need to match or beat Obama’s record Philly margin (492,339 in 2012) to win Pennsylvania’s crucial 19 electoral votes. Luckily for her, she is gaining not only in the city but also in three of the city’s suburbs, where she’ll need massive margins as well.
Yet Bucks still jumps out as an outlier on this map. After all, Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery have all voted as a trio for the same presidential candidate for 21 straight elections now, starting back in 1940. Nevertheless, despite already becoming a GOP plurality county last summer, Republicans are still strongly growing their ranks here. My theory, as a Bucks County native, is that Lower Bucks is one of the last ancestral Democratic areas in the state. Therefore, this is a lagging indicator more than a sign of things to come, although we won’t know for sure until November.
Southwest
Allegheny: D+592
Armstrong: R+320
Beaver: R+541
Butler: R+484
Cambria: R+759
Fayette: R+621
Greene: R+202
Indiana: R+246
Lawrence: R+371
Somerset: R+226
Washington: R+736
Westmoreland: R+958
The same day that Kamala Harris stumped in Wilkes-Barre, she also made a stop in Johnstown, the largest city in Cambria County. She’s fighting an uphill battle in a county where a 13,739 Democratic registration advantage became a 13,644 Republican registration lead between September 2016 and September 2024.
Trump is betting that all those efforts will be in vain and that the Southwest can once again power him to victory, like it did eight years ago. Conversely, the Harris campaign will be buoyed by those Allegheny County numbers as she’ll seek to top Biden’s 2020 147,846 vote margin there.
So the board is nearly set now, although this last upcoming month before the registration deadline will provide us with our final clues about Pennsylvania’s electorate before Election Day.
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