Huge surge in registration in Philly and its suburbs may help Obama

[book_worm]

If you look at a map of the Democratic voter registration surge (by zip code) in the five county Philadelphia region, an important pattern emerges. It will help if you know the region and the city. In Philly, registration is through the roof in University City and the rest of West Philly. This is Obama's strongest area (District 2, Chaka Fattah) in the state. Registration is also extremely high in the North (the blackest area of Philly) and in the Center City, Society Hill, Queens Village area (District 2, Bob Brady) that is socially liberal and filled with urban professionals and artists (the Creative Class). By contrast, registration is low in the Northeast, Fishtown, and deep South Philly (white ethnics, most opposed to Obama).
The same pattern holds in Bucks County, where heavily black Morrisville saw a huge spike, in Montgomery County, where heavily black Norristown and Conshohocken saw a huge spike, in Delaware County, where heavily black Chester and Darby saw a huge spike, and Chester Country, where heavily black Coatsville and West Chester saw a huge spike. Overall, the heaviest registration has come from college towns/areas, black neighborhoods, and the Creative Class neighborhoods of Philadelphia.

This portends a very high differential turnout of Obama voters to Clinton voters in the five county area. It also portends an historically unprecedented differential turnout of the black/creative class vote over the white ethnic vote.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2008/4/20/173938/448

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20080420_The_big_switch__Democrats_steadily_gaining_in_region.html?imageId=7671609

[Eurobabe]

1. make that WILL help Obama

He will take Philly and suburbs. Despite what the pundits say.

[GoesTo11]

2. I'm really worried about vote suppression in Philly area

Will polls fail to open at 7AM until after workdays start?
Will polls be moved at the last minute?
Will lines be hours long?
Will there be all sorts of mixups about who has acceptable registration?

If selected districts where Obama has 75% support, representing about 30% of dems can be reduced by 25%, that would swing about 5% of the statewide total to Clinton.

With the mayor and the governor on the same side, will this be the playbook?



I hope there are tough observers, and strong, organized and ready GOTV teams.

[Bigleaf]

3. With Rendell? Bet on it.

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. A close analysis of Pennsylvania's new Democrats, and why they could mean trouble for Hillary Clinto

Amidst all the statistics clamoring for attention during the last six weeks of 24/7 Pennsylvania primary coverage, there's one key number that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves: 306,918. That's the number of new Democrats added to the voter rolls in Pennsylvania between January 1 and the voter registration deadline on March 24. 146,166 first-time voters joined the party and 160,752 switched their registration from Republican or Independent to Democrat. (A mere 39,019 first-time voters joined the Republicans.) The new Democrats have pushed the party's total past the four million mark--a historic first for any party in the state's history. Those voters have the potential to change the results from Pennsylvania dramatically--both tomorrow, and in the general election in November.

At this point, any prediction about which candidate the new Democrats will support in the primary (which is closed; only registered Democrats can participate) is circumstantial. As a group, there's no polling data of their preferences, and newly registered voters aren't identified as such in any statewide poll. But evidence strongly suggests that most of the newly registered voters will support Barack Obama. Both campaigns led efforts to draw in supporters. The Clinton campaign dispatched about 200 volunteers to solicit the state's already registered Democrats, but Obama's campaign was more aggressive in targeting both unregistered Pennsylvanians and the Republican swing voters that he's had success picking off in other primaries.

The highest concentration of newly registered Democrats is in Philadelphia and its surrounding counties--Montgomery, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lehigh, and Berks--an area that has become increasingly important in determining the state's elections in recent years. Those counties' registrants make up about half of the 300,000 new Democrats. Though there's no saying for certain just where those voters will go, the region is fertile ground for Obama--Philadelphia is home to a large African American electorate and the fast-growing suburbs, though less diverse, are experiencing a surge in affluent, college-educated voters. "They tend to be fiscally conservative but socially moderate," explained G. Terry Madonna, professor of political science at Franklin and Marshall College. "They're not much enamored of unions, but they're pro-choice and they're relatively tolerant of diversity and they tend to be concerned about taxes." Both Madonna and Jim Hoefler, a professor of political science at Dickinson College, likened the crossover voters to "Rendell Republicans"--the 19,000 Republican voters who switched parties to help Governor Ed Rendell defeat Casey in their 2002 gubernatorial primary battle. And the fact that most of the new Democrats are coming from Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs offsets the reports from more conservative mid-state counties that voters might be switching as a result of Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos," in which his "Dittoheads" register as Democrats to much with the primary results. In those counties--Limbaugh country--the number of new Democrats is markedly lower.

.>>>>>snip

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=d67776d8-ab4e-4c12-9c1f-bfa041dcb314

[ORDem]

5. KnR

:kick: