Democrats Are Flipping to Republican in Key Swing State

President Joe Biden may be getting a warning sign from Pennsylvania, where a growing number of voters are switching their party affiliation from Democrat to Republican.

The most up-to-date voter registration data from the Pennsylvania Department of State shows that 35,589 registered Democrats have switched to their party affiliation Republican this year, as of December 18, 2023. Comparably, 15,622 registered Republicans have switched their party affiliation to Democrat. There were also 20,908 former Democrats and 18,927 former Republicans who are now unaffiliated with either party.

The departure of voters and the net loss of 19,967 Democrats signals bad news for Biden, who only won Pennsylvania by some 80,000 votes in the 2020 election.

"Current voter registration trends and polling in Pennsylvania should be setting off alarms for President Biden and Democrats at the state and national level, with pocketbook issues remaining the top concern of voters who overwhelmingly feel that things are headed in the wrong direction," Erik Telford, a senior vice president of public affairs at the Commonwealth Foundation, told Newsweek.

A December poll conducted by the Commonwealth Foundation shows that Biden's approval rating among Pennsylvania voters has remained underwater by double digits throughout 2023, with his disapproval rating reaching its highest level, 61 percent, in the foundation's tracking this year. Biden's approval among Democrats remains significantly higher than among Republicans, 72 percent to 9 percent, but is still lower than the national average. A Gallup survey released last Friday shows Biden with a 78 percent approval rating among Democrats nationally.

The Commonwealth Foundation poll also found that while roughly a third of registered voters said they would vote for Biden in 2024, 46 percent said they would refuse to vote for him in the general election, including 15 percent of Democrats who vowed not to back him. Another survey, conducted by Emerson College last month, showed that almost 75 percent of Pennsylvania Democrats would vote for Biden in a hypothetical 2024 matchup with former President Donald Trump but 10 percent would vote for Trump, while 30 percent remain undecided.

With 20 Electoral College votes—the fifth most of any state, Pennsylvania is a critical state in presidential elections. Only twice between 1932 and 1988 has a presidential candidate been able to win the White House without carrying Pennsylvania, and no Democrat has been elected president without the state since 1948.

Pennsylvania was just as pivotal to Biden's 2020 victory as it was to Trump's 2016 win when he broke the state's blue streak for the first time in 24 years. Biden, who traveled to Pennsylvania more than anywhere else during his 2020 campaign, flipped a couple of counties that swung from former President Barack Obama to Trump in 2016, performed better than Hillary Clinton in parts of Trump country and scored big with suburban voters.

Allegheny, Bucks and Westmoreland counties—which were all instrumental to Biden's 2020 victory—saw the largest net losses for the Democratic Party. In Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, 3,817 Democrats switched their registration to Republican. In Bucks County, 1,131 Democrats switched their registration to Republican. And in Westmoreland County, 1,169 Democrats switched their registration to Republican.

"If I were involved in the Biden campaign, I'd be asking a lot of questions, and doing all in my power to reverse this trend," political consultant Jay Townsend told Newsweek. "Biden does not have to win every swing state, but he can ill afford to lose Pennsylvania. Every vote will matter."

Asked about the trend in voter registration, the Democratic National Committee pointed to investments that the national party made to the Keystone State and emphasized several state wins that the Democrats have achieved in recent election cycles, signaling that the DNC expects to repeat those victories on a federal level in 2024.

"The Pennsylvania Democratic Party has had a sweeping victory for Democrats in the 2023 election cycle," a DNC spokesperson told Newsweek. "Since [state] Senator [Sharif] Street took leadership in 2022, the PA Dems have invested significantly in the party structure, providing unprecedented resources at every level."

Pennsylvania Democrats scored a significant win last month with the election of Daniel McCaffery to the state Supreme Court, securing a 5-2 majority on the bench, as well as in February, when they swept the state's special election and claimed control of the Pennsylvania House. Democrats also pulled off massive victories in the 2022 midterms, sending two Democrats to the U.S. Senate for the first time in 70 years and getting Josh Shapiro elected as governor by nearly 15 points over his Republican opponent in one of the most closely followed races of the cycle.

"This unparalleled and strategic approach allowed Democrats in urban and rural areas to flip local seats, secure the party's majority on the PA Supreme Court, and add more Democratic voices to the statewide appellate court benches," the DNC said. "The trends are clear, Democrats are invested in their future and with wins across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We will be hard at work next year to make sure we re-elect President Joe Biden and Senator Bob Casey."

In the 2022 election cycle, the DNC increased its investment in Pennsylvania by tenfold, compared with the 2018 cycle. So far in the 2024 cycle, it has put more than $100,000 into the state party—a 25 percent increase from the 2020 cycle at this point in the race.

Daniel Hopkins, a politics professor at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in state politics, told Newsweek that while Democrats are experiencing a mass exodus of voters in Pennsylvania, those are also likely voters who haven't voted for many Democratic presidential candidates in recent years.

"As a consequence, I think that comparing trends in new voter registrations is likely to be more informative than comparing overall registrations," Hopkins said. "I also expect that we might see this trend in Republican registrations accelerate this year if the GOP presidential primary is contested while the Democratic primary is less so."

Nonetheless, Telford said rejecting the recent polling data and ignoring ongoing voter registration trends could come at Biden's "own peril and have a significant impact on down-ballot races."