politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
How did you get the exact right answer?
There are 3.9 million Democratic-registered voters in PA, compared to 3.6 million Republicans, and 61,126 of them switched their registration to Republican this year. That's 1.5%. It came from 0.9%, not 0.5%, but your ending answer was spot-on.
I can't for the life of me figure out where Newsweek got the 103% increase, since it was 36,341 voters switching to Republican last year, and 61,126 isn't a 103% increase over that. It is, as Newsweek notes, "nearly twice," which is incompatible with 103%, so maybe they are just making up random numbers. I don't know.
I could also, as a separate way of illustrating how totally worthless this whole article is, total up the people who switched their registration from Republican to Democratic in 2023, and in 2024, and measure how much the number went up by, since it wasn't an election year last year and so obviously the numbers are going to go up in the year where it matters. But what would be the point? I don't want to do that, because I'm not a partisan hack trying to make a disingenuous point.
Source: https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/dos/resources/voting-and-elections/voting-and-election-statistics/currentvotestats.xls
Edit: @[email protected] figured it out. I needed to include the "other" affliliations, not just R and D. I could redo the math to see if it adds up to 103% that way, but as I mentioned, the whole comparison is useless and dishonest anyway, even with the right numbers, so why bother?
You're only looking at people who flip from D to R. The article is talking about all people who left D, including to "other".
"In 2023, 19,321 Pennsylvania voters changed their registration from Democrat to "other," and 36,341 switched from Democrat to Republican. Overall, 55,662 registered Democrats in the state left the party."
"This year, the state-released data shows that 51,937 registered Democrats changed their affiliation to "other," and 61,126 switched to Republican, for a total of 113,063 leaving the party."
113,063 / 55,662 = 2.0312
which is a 103% increase.
And people claiming this is insignificant compared to the total 6 million+ voters in PA should keep in mind that margins in PA are very close. Biden only won PA by 80,555 votes in 2020, so changes in the 100k range are absolutely significant.
Read the last paragraph of my message.
I see. why do you consider it useless and dishonest?
Because they're comparing the number of people who changed their registration in 2023 to the number in 2024, and implying a conclusion from the fact that the number went up that is anything other than "2024 is an election year so it actually matters what people are registered as, so of course the number will go up."
fair enough. The article also compared it to the opposite movement, as in the people who left the Republican Party between 2023 and 2024:
"This year, 48,702 Republicans switched parties, with 24,046 changing to "other" and 24,656 becoming Democrats, around a 67 percent increase in Republicans leaving the party."
So I guess that makes the headline a little less concerning, but the difference still seems like something to worry about.
My intent was to point out how ridiculous the "103% increase" line is, not to suggest the comparison was valid in the first place.
It's all good. I was only surprised that you seemed to have arrived at exactly the answer, clearly just by making up numbers to make a point. I was trying to agree with you and add a little data.
Thank you, friend! :)