Democratic voters overwhelmed Republicans in requests for mail-in ballots for Pennsylvania’s primary this coming Tuesday, an advantage Democrats claim bodes well for their presumptive presidential nominee, Joe Biden, in a state critical to the outcome of the fall campaign.
At the deadline for mail-in ballot requests for next week’s primary, Democratic voters across Pennsylvania submitted 1,302,052 applications, compared to just 529,220 applications submitted by Republicans, according to government figures. In other words, of the 1.9 million requests for mail-in ballots for Pennsylvania’s closed primary, 67% came from Democratic voters, with just 27% coming from Republican voters. The remaining 5.6% of requests were submitted by unaffiliated voters.
“It’s a horrible precursor for Republicans of what’s to come,” T.J. Rooney, a former chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, told the Washington Examiner last week, adding in a follow-up interview on Wednesday that the final disparity only further confirms that assessment.
The presidential election is more than five months off, and Republicans say voter behavior in a primary with a bevy of competitive Democratic contests across the state has little bearing on President Trump’s prospects.
Last week, David Urban, Trump’s top Pennsylvania lieutenant, dismissed the statistics as immaterial to the outcome of the general election. “Republicans will be more motivated to vote,” said Urban, who guided Trump’s efforts in Pennsylvania in 2016, when he became the first Republican nominee to win the state since 1988. “Democrats might have done a better ballot harvesting now. But we definitely have the advantage in organization and ground game.”
Pennsylvanians of both parties have traditionally voted in person on Election Day. Then, last year, state lawmakers enacted legislation easing participation in mail-in voting. With voters worried about contracting the coronavirus, which has killed about 100,000 people in the United States, interest in voting absentee has increased exponentially.
Democrats, who are more inclined to vote by mail and who, as a party, have mastered ballot harvesting techniques, are embracing the transition. Republican voters tend to prefer pulling the lever in person on Election Day, and some GOP insiders worry that Trump could be at a disadvantage this fall if health risks, or a reduction of physical polling places, make in-person voting more difficult. The party is attempting to make Republican voters comfortable with mail-in voting.
Messages like this from Trump are making their job difficult, said a Republican ward boss in Philadelphia. “[W]e can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country. It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win,” the president tweeted.
“There’s a big education issue in terms of fighting the narrative from the president,” Josh Novotney, the GOP ward boss in Philadelphia, recently told the Washington Examiner. “I’m not worried about turnout in the primary. But I am worried it will be a huge problem in the general election.”
