By request of @jgcOCANADA I wanted to take a little bit of a closer look at our post-Dobbs spike in PA, this time by municipality. This is an extension of last week's thread here
I could start with #BucksCounty but I thought it'd be more interesting to look at the SEPA region of Philly, Bucks, Chester, MontCo and DelCo. Like most of the state, Dems have seen the biggest increases after Dobbs overall. 2/16
The main formula I use is NewDems - NewGOP (DvR), if the number is negative then more Republicans were added. I like my color bars to divide at 0, so I like to make the maximum value the absolute value of our minimum. 3/16
The reason I'm explaining that is to also explain how that previous map is a little skewed here. The highest Republican gains seen in this region was 5 voters, but a -5 to 5 color bar would have heavily skewed the Dems 4/16
So, while this map tells you the basic information that an overwhelming number of new Dems have registered to vote compared to Republicans since Dobbs, it doesn't really put it into perspective. 5/16
First, this is what our DvR is for total voters registered prior to Dobbs. Philly is the Dem stronghold, and the closer the municipality is to Philly, the bluer it tends to be. That Blue streak in ChesCo follows Route 30, btw. I just think its neat 6/16
Also, this is a choropleth map and land doesn't vote, so keep that in mind. Overall, the region generally has a fairly strong GOP presence outside of Philadelphia, mostly in Central and Upper Bucks, upper MontCo and throughout ChesCo and DelCo 7/16
Side by side, before and after Dobbs, the spike doesn't change the overall party demographics. As in my previous thread, it's interesting to see but turnout is all that matters here. 8/16
GOP voters saw some growth throughout the region, albeit most towns saw an average of 10 new Republican voters since Dobbs. However, it does look like the places that saw the most gains are in the same towns with more Dems overall. Deviation from ave was about 44 voters 9/16
This map shows new Dems in SEPA, but I'm using the same scale as the new Republicans for context. On average, Democrats grew by 44 voters per town, roughly 100 times that in Philly. Much of those leads, though, were in Dem strongholds. 10/16
The stats for both parties shows the Dems have grown at a larger rate than GOP voters for sure, but overall it's more like a growth for the status quo before Dobbs than a red, blue or even purple wave of new voters. 11/16
Let's keep that in mind as we look at the state. A couple notes about this map first. The color scale is based on the average number of voters per town excluding Allegheny and Philadelphia. Including them turned most red areas white. 12/16
Real quick though, let's talk about this Pennsyltucky bullshit I keep hearing about. The average DvR without Philly and Allegheny is -56 and 207 with them. Yes, most towns between the major cities lean right, but it's a marginal split. Maybe Pennsylginia? Anway ... 13/16
The post-Dobbs spike wasn't seen in every town, but where it did hit it seems to have followed the same trend as the SEPA region. Dems saw their highest gains in towns where they were already leading and GOP saw some very modest gains elsewhere. 14/16
None of this is really earth shattering news, but I never miss a chance to nerd out on some maps. Anway, Pennsylginia, think about it. 15/16
Something we didn't really get into with last week's story with @BethMRodgers about a spike in new voters (linked) was the geography of it all. A thread by @lara_putnam made me want to go back through that now. bit.ly/3Ce29SG 1/17
Republican voters lead Democrats across most of PA's 67 counties. Only 15 counties have more Democrats than GOP voters, but the highest lead the Reps have in any one county is about 64,000 voters where Dems have 679K lead in Philly 2/17
The Dem saw gains in more counties and by larger numbers After Dobbs (AD). I subtracted the number of new Dems by new GOP to calculate the difference. Negative numbers meant more GOP and positive meant more Dems. The average change was 179 voters overall 2/17
This week, @BethMRodgers and I looked into a spike of new voters that came after the June 24 Dobbs ruling that kicked abortion back to the states. I've linked the story here, but I want to unpack some of this sweet, sweet voter data bit.ly/3Ce29SG 1/13
First, I'm going to be using the voter registration export from the PA Dept of State updated on Monday. The story uses data from a week ago, but here's what the party make up looks like right now. 2/13
There were about 8.75 million voters as of Aug. 15. About 3.9 million, or 45.69%, are Dems and about 39.52% are GOP. There are about 1.29 million voters that don't belong to either of the two major political parties. That's a little less than 15%. 3/13
Pennsylvania voters, most of them, will have a chance to cast their ballot for Republican and Democratic nominees for state and federal races on Tuesday. Those races are also mostly going to to be including the newly draw district maps. Let's talk numbers, shall we? 1/23 🧵
There are about 8.73 million voters, but about 1.28 million of them aren't registered as Republican or Democrat, leaving about 3.4 million Republican voters and about 4 million Democratic voters. We've got some pretty contentious races this month bit.ly/39n6p5I 2/23
Concerns over the electability of some candidates in November seems to have caused concerns among GOP leaders and PACs. Two Gov. candidates dropped out ot endorse Lou Barletta this week as Doug Mastriano leads in the polls. bit.ly/3yERAWW 3/23
We saw a campaign to remove several books from Central Bucks libraries begin in earnest this week. The link below is my story on this week’s meeting, but there’s something else I wanted to expand on: the Miller test. bit.ly/3tOs7Gt 1/20
The Miller test came up at the start of this week’s meeting, when a resident laid the groundwork for what was too “obscene” to be in a school library. The test is based on a 1973 US Supreme Court decision for Miller V California. bit.ly/3KI5bj1 2/20
The primary holding was that obscene material isn't protected speech if it lacks artistic, political or scientific merit and had to describe sexual conduct in an offensive way. Miller’s business distributed graphicly illustrated ads for pornographic material via US Mail. 3/20
There's a great story by @CarterLNP of @LancasterOnline about the group's claims in Lancaster County, and gives a good background on the group as a whole. The section of ATVPA's website offering to "see the data" on its claims is my main issue. bit.ly/3Lp4fBg 2/27
The group lists a number of claims on its statewide data section. I'm going to try and cover each one as best as I can using various data sources here. I'll be using voter rolls, mail in ballot data and other sources which I'll note as I go. 3/27
As of Jan. 24, there were about 8.7 million registered voters in PA. About 46% are Democrat, 39% Republican and almost 15% Independent, no affiliation or among one of more than 300 party affiliations recognized by the Dept. of State. 2/12
About 6.7 million of those voters cast a ballot in the Nov 2020 election, and roughly 33% of those did so by mail. At least 19% of current voters in most PA towns cast a ballot using the state's no-excuse mail option during the Nov. 2020 election. 3/12