In Pennsylvania, Shift to Democrats a "Tidalwave"
In the suburbs of Philadelphia, the switch from Republican to Democrat is happening almost everywhere. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Democrats now outnumber Republicans in two of the four counties that comprise suburban Philadelphia and Democrats and Independents together are now a larger group in the other two other counties that have long been bastions of Republican support.
And it appears that much of this Democratic excitement is being driven by Sen. Barack Obama.
John J. Kennedy, associate professor of political science at West Chester University, noted that each of the 15 communities with a new Democratic registration edge voted for Democrat John Kerry over President Bush in 2004."People change their voting patterns first," he said. "It may take years - decades - before they change their registration, and then usually there is some watershed event to make it happen."
The Obama-Clinton race appears to be just such an event - not only in the region, but statewide. Pennsylvania now has 8.3 million voters, of whom 4.2 million are Democrats and 3.2 million are Republicans. The Democrats have gained 326,756 voters since a year ago, and the Republicans have lost 73,009.
The Inquirer note that there is a "tidal wave of people in the five-county Philadelphia region - former Republicans, former independents, former nonvoters - who registered as Democrats to vote in Tuesday's primary. And the majority of these newly registered voters appear to support Sen. Barack Obama, according to a recent poll."
Most experts believe that the Democratic primary on Tuesday will be won or lost in the Philadelphia area. How much this new "tidal wave" of Democratic voters will affect the outcome of the primary is an unknown, but it could make the race a much closer contest that polls have shown - which would be seen by many as a "win" for Obama.
8:00 AM ET | 04-21-2008 | permalink
