Democratic Voter Registration Surges In Pennsylvania

Posted by Ashish on 03.26.2008

And a look at Obama's chances in the state...

The Democratic Party got some great news yesterday when it was announced that the total number of registered Democrats in the state surged to over 4 million. That number is not only a record for the Democratic party, but also a record for any political party in the state...ever. In comparison, the number of registered Republicans in PA sits at around 3.2 million. And keep in mind, PA will be a key swing state in the general election this year. Obviously this lends credibility to the argument that the ongoing Obama/Clinton battle is doing the party a lot of good by exciting people in every state they go to and getting record numbers of people registered as Democrats.

The other big question, now, is who are all these new Democrats that registered in PA? Are they mostly young people and other typical non-voters who are turning out to vote for Obama? Are they Republicans switching sides to vote for a Democrat because they really like Obama or Clinton? Are they Republicans switching sides to vote for Clinton at the urging of Rush Limbaugh? I guess we won't really know the answer to that until the PA results are in, but it is worth noting that the area with the highest surge in registration was the Philadelphia area. Obama is expected to win Philly by very big margins.

Another thing I came across today is a really good article about how Obama could win in PA, even though at this point, he is heavily expected to lose. According to the article, Obama's best bet would be to follow the strategy used by Ed Rendell (who is Clinton's top surrogate in PA) in his 2002 race for Governor, a race he won despite running against an "establishment" opponent that was expected to win.

According to the article, the way Rendell won was by ignoring virtually the entire state and instead focusing almost exclusively on Philadelphia, its suburbs, and a few other select areas. The result? He lost 57 out of 67 counties in the state but still won. He was able to do this because he turned out record numbers of voters in Philly and the Philly suburbs and got 75% of the vote in Philly and over 80% of the vote in the Philly suburbs. He also did well in South Central PA and the Lehigh Valley. But again, it is pretty amazing that he was able to win the state even though he lost 57 out of 67 counties.

Obama is in an almost identical situation now as Rendell was in then. He is facing an establishmen candidate that has the support of almost all the key political figures in the state (including Rendell) and has huge demographic advantages.

And Obama seems set to follow much of Rendell's plan. He is already winning in Philly and the Philly suburbs. The question is whether he will be able to win by big enough margins there to make him competitive in the statewide vote.

Here is a map from one of the Obama volunteer groups working in PA.



The strategy is obviously to win big in Philly and the suburbs, win South Central PA (as Rendell did), win the Lehigh Valley (as Rendell did), and then win the two big college counties and hope that it'll be enough to match Clinton's advantages in the other parts of the state. I'd expect to see Obama spend the next week or so trying to cover ground in the entire state, and then spending the last two weeks or so before voting day focusing in exclusively on Philly, the Philly suburbs, South Central, Lehigh Valley, and the college campuses.

I have my doubts about whether Obama can win in the state (he probably won't), but if he can keep it close, it would be a huge set back for Clinton who really needs to win the state by at least 10-15 points for reasons I've explained many times (she won't win the nomination unless she gets MUCH closer to Obama's pledged delegate count, and she can't do that unless she wins her states by huge margins). If she only wins the state by, say, 5-7 points, Obama will likely wipe out whatever she gains with his expected win in North Carolina. She can't keep playing this game where she wins a state like Ohio, but then has her gains erased a week later by more losses. She has to win PA by 10+ points, and then win NC and Indiana on May 6th. If she does all of that, she deserves to stay in the race until the end and, best case, may put some doubt in the heads of a few superdelegates and worst case, put Obama in a situation where he might have to accept her as his VP in order to avoid dragging the race on until possibly August. Of course, there is a valid argument to be made about whether the people who claim that they will vote for McCain if their Democratic candidate isn't the nominee will actually do so in November (I think Clinton supporters, even the ones who make threats now that they won't vote for Obama if Clinton loses, will end up voting for him in November), but I'll save that for another article.