GOP Ship Continues to Sink

Post-primary registration trends continue to favor Democrats

If the massive number of Republicans switching to the Democratic Party in the weeks before the Pennsylvania Primary was a political earthquake, what has been happening since is a strong aftershock. The desertion of the GOP by voters in bellwether counties is continuing.

Pre-primary conventional wisdom held that Republican voters were re-registering as Democrats to participate in the hotly contested election between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. GOP leaders predicted many, if not most, of the wayward Republicans would return to the fold after the primary. Reacting to the surge in party switches, the Republican State Committee and many county committees announced plans to entice their voters back into the party.

Early evidence suggests that is not happening. In fact, the erosion of the Republican Party’s voter base continues apace. Nowhere has the GOP lost more ground than in southeastern Pennsylvania where the former GOP powerhouse counties of Bucks and Montgomery went “blue” in the days prior to the primary election. The trend is continuing. In Bucks County, since the April 22nd primary, 1,590 voters have switched to become Democrats; while 476 switched to the GOP.

The trend is evident in other parts of the commonwealth as well. Like Bucks and Montgomery, Centre County is a former Republican bastion that is now majority Democrat by registration. In the weeks since the primary election, 126 voters have switched their party affiliation to Democrat, only 47 have become Republicans.

A county teetering on the brink is Dauphin, home to the state capital of Harrisburg. Solidly Republican since the Civil War, Democrats are within striking distance of becoming the majority party in Dauphin County. Since the primary 564 voters have switched to become Democrats, 254 have re-registered as Republican. Westmoreland County in southwestern Pennsylvania is a heavily Democratic county that has been trending Republican in recent years, but no longer. Since the primary election 1,318 existing voters have switched to the GOP; but 3,151 have switched to the Democratic Party.

There is more bad news for Republicans when you look at trend among voters registering for the first time. In Bucks County, for example, since the primary Democrats are out-registering Republicans by a two-to-one margin: 1,294 to 563. In Center County the numbers are smaller, but the trend is the same: 102 new Democrats to 56 new Republicans. Dauphin County has registered 787 new Democrats compared to 269 new Republicans. And in Westmoreland County there are 595 new Democrats compared to 329 new Republicans.

All of this could have a significant impact on the outcome of the November general election. Particularly in Pennsylvania, party affiliation tends to be a determining factor in how an individual will vote, although in recent elections voters have been showing a proclivity for more ticket splitting. The influence of party affiliation is even more pronounced among newly registered – or freshly converted voters. Thus, the ongoing wave of registrations and re-registrations represents a pool of voters who are unlikely to be persuaded to vote against their party affiliation in the upcoming General Election.

Competitive statewide elections in Pennsylvania have recently been won or lost by relatively small percentages. In 2004, U.S. Senator John Kerry bested President George W. Bush by just 144,248 votes to claim the Keystone state’s 21 electoral votes. This year, presumptive GOP nominee John McCain will have to make up that difference, plus overcome the erosion in the Republican Party’s voter base to have any hopes of placing Pennsylvania in his victory column.

There are also implications at the statewide level. The GOP has gone from controlling virtually all the statewide offices a few years ago to only having U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (nominally a Republican) and Attorney General Tom Corbett in non-judicial statewide offices. In 2004, Corbett withstood a Democratic tide to claim a narrow 108,791 vote victory.

Consider that in November of 2004 there were 580,000 more registered Democrats than registered Republicans in Pennsylvania. Fast forward to April of this year and Democrats now hold an 820,000 voter registration edge – a gain well in excess of Corbett’s 2004 victory margin.

While voter registration alone does not determine election outcomes the GOP must be concerned about the underlying causes of its registration implosion. Chalk part of it up to the miscalculation of party leaders who resisted efforts by Governor Ed Rendell to advance the date of the Pennsylvania primary so Republican voters would have a say in selecting their own party’s nominee. Add in the fact the GOP’s conservative base is on the cusp of rebellion over the fiscally irresponsible habits of Congressional Republicans, and state level Republicans who habitually capitulate to the Rendell Administration’s big government agenda; and the Pennsylvania Republican Party is hemorrhaging support on a number of fronts.

It will be a long, hot summer for party leaders who desperately need a titanic change in course if the GOP to be competitive at the state level this November.