A surge of Black women and young people registering to vote in Pennsylvania spells trouble for Trump

‘This data is suggesting that women, younger voters, voters of color, and then especially younger women of color are going to vote at a much higher rate than they did in 2020,’ one strategist says, predicting that it could have ‘a significant potential impact on the outcome of this election’

Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at IBEW Local Union #5 on September 02, 2024 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Getty Images)

New voter registrations surged among Black women and young people in Pennsylvania when Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, according to newly released data.

In the week that Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, new registrations increased by 262 per cent among Black women under 30 compared to the same week in 2020.

Registrations among Black voters increased by 110 per cent, and among voters under 30 years old by 59 per cent, also compared to the same week in 2020.

All of those demographic groups lean heavily towards voting for Democrats.

The new data, shared with The Independent by Democratic political data firm TargetSmart, is likely to provide a significant boost to the Harris campaign in the must-win state.

Similar trends are showing up in other swing states, too.

It is the first voter registration data from the state to be released after the week of July 21, when Harris became the presumptive nominee, and may signal a shift in the race that is not yet showing in polls.

Current polling shows a virtual dead heat between Harris and Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, a state that Biden won by a little over 80,000 votes to clinch victory.

While the raw numbers of new voters may only number in the thousands, they show an enthusiasm among traditional Democratic voting groups that could be game-changing, according to Tom Bonier, a veteran Democratic political strategist and senior advisor to TargetSmart.

“The big question we’re all trying to answer is who’s going to turn out, where the energy lies, and if there’s an asymmetrical distribution of enthusiasm between the parties,” he told The Independent.

“This data is suggesting that women, younger voters, voters of color, and then especially younger women of color are going to vote at a much higher rate than they did in 2020, and that’s where you’re talking about a significant potential impact on the outcome of this election,” he added.

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Pennsylvania does not include demographic information on its voter registration files, but TargetSmart matches identifying data on the files with consumer data from marketing firms to produce a breakdown model.

The firm produced a similar breakdown before the 2018 midterms that correctly predicted a large increase in the number of young voters, which contributed to the Democratic Party’s “blue wave” victory that year.

The new data comes as volunteers for the Harris campaign are telling a similar story across Pennsylvania.

Craig Robertson, a campaign volunteer from Lancaster County, in Pennsylvania, told The Independent this week that his area had seen a wave of young volunteers reaching out to the campaign.

“Just in our district, since Kamala took over at the top of the ticket, we’ve had almost three dozen additional volunteers skewed very much towards the younger people,” he said.

Molly McKitterick, a Democrat and former journalist also from Lancaster, said she had seen the same thing.

“I think one of the things that has not been factored into the polls is all these new people that are being registered, they are all women and young people,” she said outside of a campaign stop by vice presidential candidate Tim Walz in the town.

“So I just think we’re not seeing the true effects yet,” she added.

The importance of Pennsylvania to both campaigns has seen an avalanche of advertising spending. Democrats have spent $114 million statewide this year, while Republicans have spent $102 million.

The Harris campaign has focused heavily on running up the margins in rural, stubbornly pro-Trump areas of the state. It has opened 50 campaign offices across the state, 16 of which are in counties that Trump won by double digits in 2016.

While the polls may not be able to tell the whole story, they have shown a remarkable improvement in the Democratic Party’s prospects in Pennsylvania since Harris took over as the nominee. Harris improved upon Biden’s polling average by nearly four points in a little over a month. Crucially, the improvements for Harris are appearing in the very same groups that Biden struggled with, namely young voters and voters of color.

Bonier said that the impact of the spike in voter registrations showed that the Democrats are now running a different campaign.

“One of the main reasons Biden was lagging in the polls was because he wasn’t getting the sort of support or enthusiasm Democratic candidates historically have gotten from younger voters and voters of color. That was his biggest deficiency,” he said. “To see an immediate reaction to Vice President Harris, where exactly those voters who were the most problematic for the Biden campaign are suddenly rallying with registration rates? That doesn’t have a precedent that I’m aware of, and it is a very good sign for the Harris campaign.”