Lehigh Valley Republicans slice Democrats’ voter edge as independents make gains
By Rachel Shin, Katherine Reinhard and Robert H. Orenstein
With the presidential election just 60 days away, Republicans have further narrowed their voter registration gap with Democrats in the Lehigh Valley and across Pennsylvania while the number of people registering as independents has been keeping pace with the GOP.
As of Aug. 26, Democrats led Republicans by 37,508 voters in Lehigh and Northampton counties, a thinner margin than their 40,319 gap on April 22, the day before Pennsylvania’s primary was held, state data shows.
The story is the same at the state level, where, as of Aug. 26, there were 3,908,854 Democrats and 3,556,628 Republicans, a 352,226 gap that shrunk by nearly 44,000 since April 22, state statistics show.
Meanwhile, the number of statewide voters listed as having no affiliation – typically called independents – climbed by 57,212 to slightly more than 1 million.
In the Lehigh Valley, their number grew by 3,608 to 75,783 between April 22 and Aug. 26.
The GOP slightly outpaced independents at the state level with their number growing by 57,674. They added 3,577 voters in the Lehigh Valley between April 22 and Aug. 26.
LEHIGH COUNTY REGISTERED VOTERS*
Democrats: 112,391 +555
Republicans: 87,399 +1,886
No affiliation: 41,254 +2,073
Third Party: 7,960 +16
Total: 249,004 +4,530
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY REGISTERED VOTERS
Democrats: 96,140 +211
Republicans: 83,624 +1,691
No affiliation: 34,529 +1,535
Third party: 10,524 -34
Total: 224,817 +3,403
*As of Aug. 26
Source: Pennsylvania Department of State
Statewide, Democrats have added 13,877 voters since April. In Lehigh and Northampton they grew by 766.
The tallies for no affiliation and the Republican Party were lifted, in part, by changes in automatic voter registration enacted by Gov. Josh Shapiro last fall.
Instead of “opting in” to register to vote, qualified residents seeking to renew or get new vehicle registrations must “opt-out” of joining voter rolls.
From Sept. 19, 2023, to Aug. 26, state statistics show that 50,136 Pennsylvania residents chose no affiliation or a third party when filling out vehicle registration forms. Republicans were second with 47,952 while 43,194 chose the Democratic Party.
The Republican successes in automatic voter registration come as party leaders filed a federal lawsuit challenging Shapiro’s authority to change the process. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in March, and the 27 state lawmakers appealed the ruling to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. No hearing has been held yet.
The group also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case promptly. The court in June denied that request and scheduled a conference among the parties for Sept. 30.
Both the GOP and the Democratic Party gained members in Lehigh Valley since 2023, when both parties suffered a combined 8,766 year-over-year registration loss, as often happens during municipal election years.
While Republicans steadily added new members in ensuing months, Democrats lost 305 members in Lehigh and Northampton from April 22 through July 22 with all but 81 coming from Northampton.
The party turned around the losses after Democratic President Joe Biden ceded the party’s nomination on July 21, backing Vice President Kamala Harris.
Democrats added 1,070 voters to their rolls in both counties between July 22 and Aug. 26. That gave them a net gain of 766 since April.
“I would absolutely say that the uptake in registering to vote and enthusiasm increased in Democratic voters would be likely attributable to Biden dropping out and the party nominating Harris,” Sarah Niebler, a professor of political science at Dickinson College, said. “That energizes the people that likely were not energized before.”
Still, Republicans surpassed the Democrats with 1,464 Republicans registering in the two counties between July 22 and Aug. 26.
Joe Vichot, chair of the Lehigh County Republican Committee, attributed the uptick to automatic voter registration, dissatisfaction with the various legal cases against Trump and the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump.
He said Biden’s withdrawal and Harris’ emergence as the Democratic nominee “has only increased the public's anxiety and has forced them to get active.”
On a local level, Vichot said his party has increased outreach, holding registration and mail-in ballot drives at senior living centers, reaching out to high school seniors and having a presence at Latino festivals and back-to- school events.
Berwood Yost, the director of the Floyd Institute for Public Policy at Franklin & Marshall College, said that the Republican gains follow a historical pattern.
“It's not unusual to see changes in registration that advantage the party out of power,” Yost told Armchair. “For instance, when George Bush back in 2008 started to become unpopular, you saw Democratic voter registration improving and Republican registration bouncing the other direction. And since probably 2012, the Democratic advantage has started to shrink.”
In addition to voters reacting against the party currently in power, there’s a lag between voter partisanship and formal registration, Yost added. Some of the newly registered members of the GOP have likely identified as Republicans for years, but only recently registered as such.
Meanwhile, the Lehigh Valley had 94,272 registered as no affiliation or third party members on Aug. 26, a number that is about 17,000 more than the entire population of the city of Bethlehem. There were 18,484 third party members as of Aug. 26, a loss of about 28 members since April.
Yost said the numbers in the no affiliation and third party categories reflect a “dissatisfaction with the way our politics and our governance works.”
Niebler added that joining a third party or no party is a way to express disillusionment with the two-party system, especially in a closed primary state like Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania is such a closely contested battleground that those independent voters will likely be the margin of victory in November, Yost said.
That means any candidate must assiduously court voters outside their party to clinch a victory in the battleground, he said.
Lori McFarland, chair of the Lehigh County Democratic Committee, agreed.
“Looking at the new registration numbers, Dems and Republicans appear to be neck-and-neck with Democrats still outnumbering Republicans. The key is to look at the number of new voters registering as Independents. Those are the voters I’m sure both sides will be targeting,” she said.