GOP Voter Registration Four Times Higher Than Democrats in Pennsylvania

Voter registration among Republicans is four times higher than it is among Democrats in Pennsylvania, according to new data.

Decision Desk data shows that GOP voter registration surged in July, with more than 21,000 Republicans signing up to vote. In contrast, only 5,000 Democrats registered to vote in July 2024.

The data also shows that since November 2020, the number of Democrats registered to vote in the state has decreased by more than 320,000. Meanwhile, the number of Republicans registered to vote has also dropped, but by a much smaller margin, with 1,400 fewer voters since 2020.

Pennsylvania is among the 30 states, including the swing states of North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona, which register voters by requiring a political party designation. If voters refuse to choose a party, they will remain unaffiliated.

Overall, three million fewer people are registered to vote now compared to November 2020, when there were 121 million registrations, according to Decision Desk HQ. The drop is unsurprising given that The National Voting Rights Act (NVRA) allows states to conduct voter roll clean-ups between elections.

However, Decision Desk HQ data shows a discrepancy in the drop in registered voters between the parties, with the Democrats losing 3.5 million registered voters nationally, while the Republicans have gained 141,000 registered voters.

Meanwhile, in 28 of the 30 states that require voters to register with a party, Republicans have net more voter registrations than Democrats (Colorado and California withstanding), picking up more than 225,000 registrations in the first 21 days of July.

For example, Florida has 1 million more Republican registered voters than Democrats, AP reported, with 5.3 million active Republican voters in the state compared to 4.3 million active Democratic voters.

Evan Power, the Florida Republican Party chair, said having this large of a voter registration edge is a win for the Florida Republican Party, which he touted as "the most successful party in the nation."

Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, called the voter registration edge "empty rhetoric."

"While Florida Republicans have spent years dismantling voting rights to inflate their numbers and take victory laps on the voter registration gap, it hasn't stopped Florida Democrats from winning elections like the Jacksonville Mayor's race or flipping State House District 35, both wins that demonstrated a growing lack of enthusiasm for the Republican Party and an increasing number of Independent voters rejecting extremism in Florida," she said in a statement to AP.

Despite the discrepancy in registered voters between the parties, Democrats are starting to pick up in terms of voter registration after Biden ended his re-election campaign, according to Decision Desk HQ, meaning Democrats may see a surge in voter registration nationally in August.

The last few months before election day are always the most fruitful for voter registration. Based on state registration reports provided by election boards across all 50 states, there were more than 6 million new voter registrations in the three months leading up to election day in 2020.