The current early vote numbers in Pennsylvania — 1.78 million early votes so far – break down to 995,674 registered Democrats, 586,764 registered Republicans, and 204,493 no party or minor parties, a 55.7 percent to 32.8 percent to 11.4 percent split.
Trump fans are quick to point out that this is actually good news for their man, because four years ago the numbers were significantly worse — 1,702,484 registered Democrats, and 623,404 registered Republicans, a 65 percent to 24 percent split– and Trump came within 81,000 votes of winning the state.
True enough, but there are some caveats. We, or at least I, would expect the use of absentee ballots to drop this cycle compared to 2020 because A) we’re not in a pandemic and B) Democrats were much more enthusiastic about social distancing at this time four years ago. In other words, some Democrats who voted absentee and early four years ago will be voting in person on Election Day this year. I would expect absentee voting to be down significantly for all demographics, but then again, the GOP is putting more effort into persuading their grassroots to vote early this year, so maybe that balances it out a bit.
Right now, 408,000 fewer registered Republicans have voted than registered Democrats. Now, as I mentioned this weekend, Pennsylvania likely has a bunch of culturally conservative blue-collar registered Democrats who are more inclined to vote for Trump than the typical registered Democrat in some other state, but… how many of those 995,000 voters do you think voted for Trump?
And do you think it is a safe bet that Trump wins two-thirds of the votes cast on Election Day again?
I feel safe assuming that 90-some percent or so of the registered Republicans will vote for Trump, and 90-some percent or so of the registered Democrats will vote for Harris. Then there’s the question of how those 204,000 or so no party or minor party members voted.
Pennsylvania has 13,042 registered members of the Green Party, and as of the end of last year, 42,195 registered Libertarians. “Independent poll respondent” and “no party or minor party members” are not synonyms, but I figure the polling numbers for independents are our best shot at getting a sense of how those unaffiliated voters are preferring. Alas, the preferences of self-identified independents in Pennsylvania varies quite a bit in recent polling:
The Marist poll of likely voters has Harris leading independents in Pennsylvania, 55 percent to 40 percent.
The Washington Post poll of likely voters has Harris leading independents in Pennsylvania, 58 percent to 34 percent.
The Fox News poll of likely voters has Trump leading independents in Pennsylvania, 45 percent to 40 percent.
Quinnipiac has them evenly split, 43 percent each, among indies.
I think Trump has a good chance of winning the state. And the fact that Harris is doing four events in Pennsylvania today suggests she is either worried about the state or feels the state is close enough to require spending all of her time and efforts in the Keystone State today.
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