The final month of the 2024 election didn’t start off like Democrats hoped.
Kamala Harris and her allies got some bad news.
And Kamala Harris sat up straight in fear over a scary red flag in this critical state.
Voter registration numbers in Pennsylvania favor Republicans
MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki broke down to viewers why Pennsylvania was the whole ball of wax in the 2024 election.
Kornacki explained that the way the electoral map broke down, all Trump had to do was win North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania to reach 270 Electoral College votes.
“If Trump gets Georgia, where he leads in the point average by a point and a half — if he gets North Carolina where he’s literally tied in the polls right now and where Trump won in 2020 — the only one of these battleground states Trump carried four years ago,” Kornacki began.
The Real Clear Politics polling average shows Trump and Kamala Harris tied, so this one could go either way.
“Then all Trump would need, on top of Georgia and North Carolina, would be Pennsylvania where Harris does have a small lead in the averages now. But Trump getting those three would get him to 270. So that’s the importance for him and for Democrats the importance for blocking that path for Trump in Pennsylvania,” Kornacki stated.
But Kornacki said there was a big-time warning sign for Kamala Harris developing in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
And those are the voter registration numbers that show Republicans outpacing Democrats and cutting the Democrats’ edge by 66 percent since 2016.
“You’re looking at party registration in Pennsylvania, and look at this: When Donald Trump first came on the scene, back in 2016, the democratic advantage and party registration in Pennsylvania was over 900,000 votes [in] 2020. Look now, in 2024, that’s been cut in two-thirds there, down to 330,000. There’s been a little bit of a boost for Democrats since Kamala Harris took over in registration, but the big picture trend has been more competitive for Republicans in party registration,” Kornacki explained.
Republicans keep gaining ground in Pennsylvania
Kornacki noted that Pennsylvania has 67 counties.
In 57 of them, Republicans gained vote share in the Trump era.
“Believe it or not, in the Trump era, there are only 10 counties in the entire state where Democrats performed better now than they did before Trump came along. However, some of these counties are very big. Focus on these four collar counties right outside Philadelphia, Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Bucks — more than a fifth of the vote statewide will come out of there,” Kornacki added.
One of the biggest gains Republicans made in Pennsylvania – as well as across the country – is with Latino voters.
Kornacki told viewers that Trump made huge improvements in Pennsylvania’s “Latino Belt.”
“Here are some of the cities in that Latino belt of Reading, Pennsylvania — it’s 70% Latino. Now it was overwhelmingly Democratic in 2020. Joe Biden won by 45 points, but look at that,” Kornacki remarked. “That’s down almost 20 points from 2012. Hazleton, Pennsylvania, more than 60% Hispanic and Democrats won it narrowly — it’s now a double-digit Trump place. Allentown has come down in its margin for Democrats.”
The 2024 election is a close race that will be won on the margins.
The voter registration numbers could hint that Trump’s plan to expand the electoral map with irregular voters – especially young black and Hispanic men – could be paying dividends in the tipping point state.
