PA voter registration trends: Going bluer

[flowomo]

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — These are tough times for the state’s Republican Party.

Republican voters are defecting by the thousands in Pennsylvania, all while the national media spotlight remains trained on the Democratic presidential candidates heading into the state’s primary next month.

Rob Gleason, the state GOP chairman, acknowledges the difficulty of trying to rebuild the party, but sees a silver lining in the frequent rhetorical clashes between the would-be Democratic nominees, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.

“The fact that they’re beating each other up is good for us,” he said, arguing that such conflict shores up the GOP base.

Recent voter registration trends have been far more encouraging for the Democrats, whose membership is all but certain to exceed 4 million — a level that neither party has attained before — by Monday’s deadline for joining or changing parties.

Since last fall’s election, the number of voters registered as Democrats has increased by more than 111,000 statewide — about 3 percent — while Republican enrollment shrank by more than 13,000, or 0.4 percent.

Since January, of the more than 68,000 registered voters who changed their party affiliation, those who enrolled as Democrats outnumbered Republicans by more than 3-1.

http://cumberlink.com/articles/2008/03/22/news/news494.txt

[Eurobabe]

1. Got that right, I know quite a few Repubes in PA that have gone blue

Two terms of Bushler was enough for them.

[Nitrogenica]

2. Let's just hope this isn't the dittoheads voting for her so they can vote against her.

[HockeyMom]

3. About the same in my home state of NY

Independents now even outnumber Republicans, let alone Democrats.

[JimGinPA]

4. Those Numbers Are A Little Old...

The Obama campaign has been active in registering new voters and switching independents for weeks. Locally they have had a hard time proccessing all the registration forms. I expect the final total of new democrat voters will be shocking, especially to the other candidate.