Guest Post by Philip Hodges
Republicans – particularly Trump’s supporters – are always talking about how the polls are either rigged by the pollsters, or they’re not accurate because they don’t include all the voters who are new to the voting process. They only survey likely voters based on previous data, and things have changed rather dramatically since then.
In Pennsylvania, nearly 100,000 (97,603) Democrats have switched to the Republican Party this year alone.
On top of that, the Republican Party of Pennsylvania has seen over 243,000 new voters since November of last year.
How does this compare with the Democrats in the state? They’ve seen some switch-overs as well, but not to the extent that the Republicans have seen. They’ve seen just over 38,000 voters switch from Republican to Democrat.
“Enthusiasm is clearly on the side of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania this year,” Republican Party of Pennsylvania Chairman Rob Gleason said. “Republicans are making historic gains in voter registration in the Keystone State. As the last-minute registrations are processed, we’re confident we will see our Party grow even larger.
“Now, it is time to turn Republicans’ voter registration momentum into victory for Donald Trump and our entire Republican ticket this November.”
According to the Pennsylvania GOP, “the surge in Republican registrations is nearly twice the number of newly registered Republicans compared to both the 2008 and 2012 numbers combined.”
Most of the recent polls taken immediately after Trump’s 2005 derogatory comments surfaced show the Republican nominee’s numbers falling. Only one had him in a tie with his Democratic opponent.
Over the next few days, I imagine his support will inch back up, but is it possible – considering that many people are registering to vote for the first time – that these polls are leaving out a substantial number of voters? I guess we’ll have to wait until we vote in the only poll that actually matters on November 8 to find out.
Cross-posted from Eagle Rising
