Party registration doesn’t matter much. That’s the bottom line conclusion I reach on reading Nate Cohn’s article in the New York Times Upshot blog headlined, “Democrats’ edge in voter registration declining, but looks can be deceiving.”

Cohn is addressing claims by Donald Trump supporters that increases in Republican registration, plus the significant number of registered Democrats who switched and became registered Republicans before presidential primaries in states like Pennsylvania, showed increasing strength for the Republican Party. As Cohn points out, the increases and re-registrations tended to come in areas in which Republican general election candidates have been regularly receiving the votes of many registered Democrats. Such areas include much of western Pennsylvania and northern Florida, as Cohn points out in revealing detail.