Democrats ended 2025 with a statewide voter-registration advantage over Republicans of about 171,402 \u2014 a diminishing lead that\u2019s decreased since President Donald Trump won Pennsylvania and the White House in 2024 and shrunk substantially since his first victory in 2016.<\/p>\n
State voter registration data updated Monday, the last update of 2025, shows 3,814,831 registered Democrats and 3,643,429 registered Republicans statewide, a difference of 171,402 voters. Pennsylvania Democrats did not widen their overall registration advantage last year, the first year of Trump\u2019s second term, despite the president\u2019s tumbling approval rating and other signs some voters have serious misgivings about his trade policy, approach to immigration enforcement and handling of the economy, among other issues.<\/p>\n
The Democratic Party had a statewide registration advantage of about 916,274 when Trump first won Pennsylvania and the presidency in 2016. Republicans shaved more than 229,000 off that Democratic advantage by the 2020 election, when Trump lost the state and presidency to Democrat and Scranton native Joe Biden. But the GOP registration gains continued into 2024, when Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris here and overall to win back the White House.<\/p>\n
Data updated in late September 2024 put the Democratic statewide advantage at about 338,396 registered voters. It stood at just 216,892 in late December 2024, after Trump\u2019s latest victory, and eroded further to about 174,758 as of mid-August. The statewide Democratic edge shrunk just modestly since.<\/p>\n
Lackawanna County, the only Northeast county Harris won in 2024, remains the region\u2019s lone Democratic stronghold and one of just two Northeast counties where Democrats have a registration advantage at all, the other being Monroe County.<\/p>\n
There were 76,143 registered Democrats in Lackawanna County as of Monday compared to 52,278 Republicans, a difference of 23,865. That\u2019s down slightly from the 24,426-voter advantage Democrats enjoyed in Lackawanna in mid-August.<\/p>\n
Monroe County\u2019s more-modest Democratic advantage stood at 5,052 as of Monday: 48,140 Democrats to 43,088 Republicans. In mid-August, that Democratic advantage was about 5,357 voters.<\/p>\n
In Luzerne County \u2014 where Trump won in 2016, 2020 and 2024 and where Republicans gained the voter registration advantage over Democrats in September 2024 for the first time since the 1970s \u2014 the GOP lead as of Monday was 6,979: 91,121 registered Republicans to 84,142 Democrats. That advantage has grown slightly since mid-August, when it stood at about 6,521.<\/p>\n
Democrats performed well in Luzerne County during November\u2019s municipal election despite the GOP registration edge, flipping four Luzerne County Council seats to regain a council majority.<\/p>\n
The region\u2019s more rural counties remain reliably red, with Republicans maintaining registration advantages of about 9,370 in Pike County, 11,300 in Susquehanna County, 12,997 in Wayne County and 6,655 in Wyoming County.<\/p>\n
The GOP advantage in Schuylkill County was 27,852 as of Monday: 53,159 Republicans to 25,307 Democrats.<\/p>\n
The 2026 election cycle will feature the congressional midterm elections, with all 435 seats in the House of Representatives on ballots this year. Democrats hope to regain, and Republicans hope to maintain, majority control of the House in the midterms that will largely serve as a referendum on the first two years of the second Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Neither of Pennsylvania\u2019s two U.S. Senate seats are on the ballot this cycle, which will feature a governor\u2019s race in Pennsylvania and races for state House and certain state Senate seats.<\/p>\n
Unregistered would-be voters have until May 4 to register if they want to vote in the 2026 primary scheduled for May 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrats ended 2025 with a statewide voter-registration advantage over Republicans of about 171,402 \u2014 a diminishing lead that\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,803,139,28,4399,231,178,180,179,1481,2943],"class_list":{"0":"post-78379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-lackawanna-county","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-luzerne-county","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-pike-county","14":"tag-schuylkill-county","15":"tag-scranton","16":"tag-scranton-headlines","17":"tag-scranton-news","18":"tag-wayne-county","19":"tag-wyoming-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}