GOP Closing Voter Registration Gaps in Key Swing States

Republicans are closing the voter registration gaps in key swing states, according to the Trump Victory data obtained by Axios.

While Democrats hold an advantage in voter registrations in several key states, the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee are closing the gap, registering 100,000 new voters prior to the upcoming election. Many of those new registrations are in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Florida, and North Carolina — three states Donald Trump narrowly secured in 2016.

According to the data obtained by Axios, the GOP has “lessened the margin by 133,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania and 87,000 voters in Florida” while gaining “a net 216,410 voters since Election Day 2016” in North Carolina.

Republicans have also reclaimed a voter registration advantage in Iowa and are outpacing Democrats in Arizona.

The development coincides with recent a recent Economist/YouGov survey, revealing a sizeable enthusiasm gap between Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden (D). Sixty-eight percent of Trump supporters say they are “enthusiastic” about the president. By contrast, less than a majority, or 40 percent, said the same of Biden. Despite that, Economist/YouGov offered a dose of skepticism, contending that enthusiasm does not necessarily translate to the act of voting for the candidate:

A large majority of supporters of both candidates say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about “voting for President in the upcoming presidential election in November,” with the gap between Trump (76%) and Biden (69%) narrowed to seven percentage points (the gap on “extremely enthusiastic” is just six points; 56% among Trump supporters and 50% among Biden supporters).

Nonetheless, Republican leaders view voter registration success, as well as the enthusiasm gap, as positive trends.

“As enthusiasm for President Trump continues to grow, so does the Republican Party,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said, according to Axios.

“Over 100,000 new voters are ready to cast their ballot for four more years of President Trump’s ‘Promises Made, Promises Kept’ agenda, and elect Republicans up and down the ballot on November 3rd,” she added.

Last month, McDaniel revealed that Republicans had “registered more voters than the entire 2016 cycle.”

“We have had people in all of these battleground states. We have the highest staff that we have ever had, and we have activated over a million volunteers. And the Biden operation has not been existent,” she told Fox & Friends.

“So, the second the pandemic hit, we went completely virtual. We haven’t lost a step, and we’ve continued to do voter [registration],” she continued. “And we’ve registered more voters already than we did in the entire 2016 cycle.”