WASHINGTON — Even before the COVID-19 outbreak and the economic slump, President Donald Trump faced a big challenge in his 2020 re-election effort: a changing American electorate. Young voters have been a challenge for Trump since he entered politics (he lost voters under 40 by double digits in 2016) and every year there is a new set of them entering the voting pool.
There are new voters every year of all ages, of course, but the biggest increase tends to be with those who turn 18 and “age into voting.” A look at the voter registrations since 2016 in four key battleground states shows how the political age divide could have real impacts this fall.
Let’s start with Pennsylvania, one of the three “Big Ten” conference states that put Trump over the top in the Electoral College and where Trump won by a narrow margin.
Since Election Day 2016, Pennsylvania has added 922,000 new voters to the rolls, according to data from TargetSmart. Between the two main political parties, Democrats have an edge of 132,000 over Republicans in new registrations. In addition, about 197,000 registered unaffiliated, that is without a political party.
That 132,000-registration edge for the Democrats is not insignificant. In 2016, Trump won the entire state of Pennsylvania by less than 45,000 votes. The Democrats’ new registration edge is not definitive, of course. People don’t always vote for their party. People can switch parties. And registrants, whatever their party, don’t always vote.
But the Democrats’ new registrant advantage in Pennsylvania still sheds light on how Trump’s fight for the state may have gotten a bit harder in the last four years — particularly considering how much the president has focused on his voting base rather than working to expand his supporters.
And other states show the same trend to varying degrees.
Florida has added 2.4 million new voters since Election Day 2016, with Democrats holding a 59,000 edge in new registrants in the two-party split and unaffiliated clocking in at 858,000 new registrants. Trump won Florida by a more solid 112,000 votes in 2016, but 59,000 is not an inconsequential number.
In Arizona, there have been more than 1 million new voters registered since 2016 and there, things have been a bit closer. Democrats only hold an 11,000 edge in new registrations. In addition, there have been 355,000 unaffiliated new registrants.
And North Carolina has added another 1.3 million voters to its rolls since 2016. Democrats had an edge of more than 56,000 in those new registrations, while another 583,000 registered as unaffiliated.
In state after state, the story is the same, Democrats have the high ground with new registrants. Even in states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, where voters don’t register with a party, data modeled off of existing demographic and geographic patterns shows Democrats hold an edge with new voters.
For Republicans and President Trump, there may be some hope in the unaffiliated voter data. In every state, the number of unaffiliated new voters is higher than the Democratic advantage in new registrations.
But there’s a problem with that reading of the numbers. A deeper dive into those unaffiliated registrations shows the majority of them were composed of younger voters in every state.
In Florida, 56 percent of those unaffiliated voters were under the age of 40. In Pennsylvania, the figure was 61 percent under 40. In Arizona, it was 63 percent and in North Carolina, the number was 69 percent. And again, Trump about 37 percent of the under-40 vote in 2016.
Add it all up and the new registration numbers show an additional challenge Trump faces in 2020 in key battleground states. The voter pool is changing.
Are the numbers small? Yes. But four years ago, Trump won the Electoral College by winning three states, Michigan Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, by about 78,000 votes. In other words, even numbers as small as these could end up making a big difference in November.