GOP sees a silver lining in voter registration
With President Donald Trump trailing in public polls in nearly every major battleground state, Republicans are pointing to what they see as more promising data: Updated voter registration tallies show that Republicans have narrowed the gap with Democrats in three critical states.
As the presidential campaign heads into its final weeks, Republicans hope that gains in voter registration in the three states— Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — and heavy turnout by those new party members might just be enough to propel Trump to a second term.
“The tremendous voter registration gain by the Republicans is the secret weapon that will make the difference for the Republicans in 2020,” said Dee Stewart, a Republican political consultant in North Carolina.
Overall, Democrats retain a lead in total registrations in those three states and hold a significant advantage in early turnout. Democrats also have picked up voters in Arizona, a state Trump won by 91,000 votes in 2016 butwhere Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, now leads in the polls. In New Hampshire, another battleground where public polls also show Biden in the lead, Democrats have overtaken Republicans in the registered voter count for the first time since 2010, now leading 332,000 to 310,000.
Voter registration numbers alone are not predictive about the outcome of races: Democrats had a surge in voter registrations in 2018 andwent on to win theHouse of Representatives but lost some races in key stateswhere they had an overall registration edge. Democrats also led Republicans in voter registration in several key states in 2016 that they ended up losing.
Party registrations are driven in some states by local and congressional races as much as the presidential race, too.
The Trump-Biden contest this fall may be driven less by incremental changes in registration than bywho turns out to vote, and how much they want the president to have a second term or not. And the difference of a point or two in voter registration only makes a difference in a close race.
Analyzing voter registration — and how it might affect the outcome of the looming election — is also complicated by the fact that a number of states permit same-day voter registration. In addition, at least six battleground states — Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin — do not break down voter registration by party, although Democrats
point to some perceived gains there.
In their optimism regarding the registration data, Republicans point first to Florida, the largest battleground state, which has 29 electoral votes.
Polls show Biden narrowly leading in the state, which Trump won by 113,000 votes in 2016, but Republicans say the increase in registered voters there has the potential to give the president an edge.
In data released last week by the Florida secretary of state’s office, Republicans had narrowed the registration chasm with Democrats to 134,000 out of 14.4 million voters — fewer than 1 percent. In 2016, when Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, lost the state to Trump, Democrats held a 330,000-voter advantage.
Mac Stevenson, a Republican political consultant in Florida, said the increase in registration could be viewed only as a positive sign for Republicans.
“I think it augurs that there’s going to be increased Republican turnout, but you have to balance that against the fact that everyone’s turning out more,” Stevenson said, pointing out that Democrats have historically lagged in turnout.
In Pennsylvania, a state Trump won by less than a percentage point in 2016, Republicans also cite gains stemming from their get-out-the-vote efforts. Republicanswent door to door and set up booths at gun shows and supermarkets despite the coronavirus crisis.
“We were plowing the fields, and they weren’t out there,” said
Christopher Nicholas, a longtime Republican political consultant in Pennsylvania. “The Democratic groups didn’t get back on the street until Labor Day. They were more skittish about it.”
Nicholas notes that, despite the registration numbers, population trends in the state benefit Democrats, adding that a growing number of people are registering to vote without declaring a party affiliation.
Recent figures from Pennsylvania elections officials show that Republicans have added 174,000 voters since 2016, while Democrats lost 31,000.
Democrats said they were focused on mobilizing existing voters rather than registering new ones, but they also pointed to data from TargetSmart, a Democratic polling firm, suggesting that newly registered voters in Pennsylvania were more likely to vote Democrat than Republican.
Brendan Welch, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said that Republicans’ gains could be traced to voters who were previously registered as Democrats but who had voted Republican for years, and cited Republican registration increases in counties that Trump carried in 2016.
“These are mostly the kind of folks who have been registered Democrats since the days of Jimmy Carter versus Gerald Ford, but who have been voting Republican since the days of George Bush versus Al Gore,” Welch said.
A similar dynamic may be at work in North Carolina, where Republicans have narrowed the gap in registrations. Records show Democrats lost 136,000 voters since 2016 while Republicans gained 100,000, although Democrats still lead in overall registrations by 400,000, with 2.6million Democrats and 2.2million Republicans.