Will it be like 2016 all over again? Pennsylvania is a key state and it looks like the media’s constant bashing of President Donald Trump didn’t harm him in the state.
In fact, it seems Trump is more popular in Pennsylvania than in 2016 because the state has seen a lot of new Republican registered voters.
The polls in Pennsylvania showed a close race between Trump and failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The experts believed Hillary would win the state.
Trump defeated her, 48.17% to 47.48&. He took home 56 of the 67 counties.
The media has been unkind to Trump, but has it done anything? I guess not because Politico reported that the number of registered Republican voters continues to grow in Pennsylvania:
The GOP has added almost 198,000 registered voters to the books compared to this time four years ago, whereas Democrats have gained an extra 29,000. Though Democrats still outnumber Republicans by about 750,000 voters in the state, the GOP has seized on their uptick in party members as a sign that Trump is on track to win this critical Rust Belt swing state a second time.“It’s one of the reasons why I am very bullish on Donald Trump’s prospects in Pennsylvania. I think he will win again, and I think he will win by more votes than he did in 2016,” said Charlie Gerow, a Harrisburg-based Republican strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns in the state. “Trump is doing what Ronald Reagan did 40 years ago, which is moving a lot of traditional Democrats into the Republican column.”
The Democrats held 49% of the electorate in September 2016. They now only hold 47%. Republicans saw an increase to 39% from 38%.
Trump has helped to grow Pennsylvania’s Republican party:
“It’s Trump, Trump, Trump,” said Gloria Lee Snover, chair of the Northampton County Republican Party. When she has signed up voters, she added, “They’re like, ‘Oh, I want to be in the Trump party.’ It’s kind of funny. … I’m like, ‘You mean the Republican Party?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah.’”
The Democrats said they are not worried. A Democratic consultant brushed it off as mostly “‘Democrats’ who haven’t been voting for Democrats for a long time, choosing to re-register as Republican.”
Did the Democrats learn anything from 2016? I guess not, but this time, they have the pandemic as an excuse:
Republicans around the state said that they have benefited in recent months from the fact that the Trump campaign, which has sought to downplay the Covid-19 pandemic, has been knocking on doors and registering voters in person.Joe Biden’s team has so far refrained from door-knocking in an effort to protect staffers and voters from the virus, though local Democratic groups in the state have held some socially-distanced in-person events to sign up voters.Some Democrats said that has posed a challenge. The party has also spent significant resources on informing voters how to vote by mail that, in another year, could have been invested in other areas such as voter registration.“Look, I’ll be real: The pandemic has kind of thrown a wrench into things,” said Jason Henry, executive director of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party. “Our focus has truly been on educating voters on the new vote-by-mail laws.”
Voters in Erie, Luzerne, and Northampton counties helped Trump flip Pennsylvania. The Republican Party has seen a huge jump in voter registrations in those counties, which could be a sign that he will maintain them.
The Democrats in Pennsylvania are trying to make it seem like no big deal, but how much do you want to bet that they’re sweating? 2016 taught us that anything can happen. I still cannot believe Trump is president!
But Trump is doing what he did in 2016: hitting those key states. He gave a speech in Michigan on Thursday night. He spoke in Pennsylvania earlier this month.
Good luck, Democrats.
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