3 in 5 in Luzerne didn't vote in the primary!

Wilkes Barre PA

Description

Turnout numbers from the ’22 primary have been posted by the Secretary of State! Here’s a couple noteworthy findings. The eleven counties in Northeastern Pennsylvania are fairly evenly split among registered Democrats (315K) and Republicans (332K). However, 8.7% more Republicans (39.2%) than Democrats (30.4%) voted in May. This is consistent with the conventional wisdom that Republicans tend be a bit older and more reliable voters. Also, there is that an enthusiasm gap for the party out of power. Another wrinkle is that the governor’s race had nine candidates on the Republican side but only one for the Dems. Still, well over half of folks in both parties did not vote so lots of room for improvement in November! The pattern gets more interesting when broken down by county. Luzerne ranked 5th for the percent voting for Republicans compared to ninth for Democrats. Seven out of ten (71.0%) of registered Democrats didn’t vote. Similarly, about three out of five (58.4%) of registered Republicans didn’t vote in Luzerne county. I’ve only lived in NEPA for six years so am still trying to figure out the nuances between different counties. The general urban-rural distinction are pretty striking though. Disclaimer #1: I tried to be very careful when entering these numbers. The total number of votes were based on who voted for Senate candidates and may be slightly different based on other races. The Republican numbers are not based on the recount as this info wasn’t publicly available for all counties. Suspect that information would have a very modest impact. The horizontal dashed line is the percentage voting for each party. Disclaimer #2: There are different ways to define the boundaries of NEPA.