Opinion: Pennsylvania’s dramatic shift rightward is a warning sign for both parties about overreach – By Salena Zito (Washington Examiner) / April 10, 2022
JOHNSTOWN, Pennsylvania — When Ken Miller changed his party registration from Democrat to Republican in September 2020, he said he wasn’t doing it for Donald Trump. He had not voted for Trump or Hillary Clinton in 2016. Rather, he said, he was doing it for himself and his community after watching Democrats govern during the pandemic.
“I am tired of what I am seeing,” he said. Democrats appeared to ignore people like Miller, viewing his vote as replaceable by someone in their theoretical ascendant Democratic coalition of young people, women, intellectuals, and nonwhite voters. But the thinkers in Washington may have been too clever by half.
Without working-class voters — white, black, and Hispanic — one cannot form a coalition to win elections. This applies not just to the White House but also to congressional and state-level races. In fact, if Democrats abandon workers for the professional class, they won’t even be able to hold school boards and county row offices in many places.
In September 2020, Cambria County Democrats became a minority party without much fanfare. The Pennsylvania Department of State registration numbers showed Republicans with 37,951 registrations and Democrats with just 37,826. Since that milestone, the bleeding has continued, with Democrats decreasing by nearly 3,000 voters to 35,037, while Republicans have risen to 41,128.
