I’m sure you’ve heard all about this “red wave” that is supposedly coming in November. And you might have even taken notice that more than a few typically Democratic districts and areas have just voted in Republicans over Democrats as proof of this.
Perhaps that’s because, according to new voter registration data analyzed by the Associated Press, a not-so-right-leaning publication, more than one million voters have recently switched sides and joined the Republican Party in over 40 states.
According to the AP, the growth is pretty much happening everywhere. Everywhere tallies were taken, Republican voter registration was up. But the most significant gains in GOP registration came from suburban areas that supposedly voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
Places like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Raleigh, North Carolina, Augusta, Georgia, and Des Moines, Iowa, all went to Biden and not Trump. And yet, those areas now boast a massive increase in Republican voters.
In fact, those areas of growth have already created quite the “red wave” in several states. Iowa used to be a state where Democrats typically outnumbered Republicans two to one when it came to those who changed parties. Now, the opposite has occurred.
And the same can be said of Ohio.
In Florida, the AP noted that some 70 percent of those changing parties choose red over blue. In Pennsylvania, that number is up to 63 percent.
So why is everyone apparently leaving the Democratic Party?
Well, there are a number of reasons.
Undoubtedly, many of those have to do with Biden and his administration’s rather disastrous plans, whether that’s inflation, his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, rising taxes, the gas hike, the baby formula shortage, immigration problems, etc.
But for the most part, it all boils down to the fact that what Biden and his party are doing is not in line with what voters want.
Jessica Kroells of Larimer Country, Colorado, says that by the end of 2020, it was clear the Democratic Party had “left me behind.” She added that the “party itself (is) no longer Democrat, it’s progressive socialism.’
Ben Smith, also of Larimer County, agreed with this, adding that for him and likely thousands more, the switch is not so much an embrace of the right but a “rejection of the left.”
But that doesn’t mean that those who are switching will be all gung ho to accept whoever the GOP nominates for any position. As the organization Americans for Prosperity leader, Emily Seidel, explains, Republicans will stall and have to work hard to prove themselves to these party changers.
Perhaps some of that is because of what happened in 2020 with Biden.
Much of the party was in strong rejection to then-President Donald Trump. And so, in that rejection, they voted for Biden, despite seeing all the signs that he might not work out so great. As many at the time said, it wasn’t a vote for Biden so much as a no vote for Trump.
But you see where that got them.
And so, while many have indeed switched parties, they might not be as ready to simply accept whoever the RNC declares as their leader, whether in state or federal races.
These party changers, as Seidel says, are distancing themselves from Democrats and “extreme policy positions.” “But that doesn’t mean they’re ready to vote against those lawmakers either. Frankly, they are skeptical of both options that they have.”
And this means that while a red wave is likely and may even seem inevitable, Seidel advises that GOP candidates are really going to “have to make their case; they have to give voters something to be for, not just something to be against.”
They’ve learned that they can’t just be against the Democrats or even Biden. If not, they could end up in another similar situation years down the road.
However, that still doesn’t mean that the Democrats won’t get a good trouncing coming in November and possibly even in 2024.
As RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel says, the left is “woefully out of touch with the American people.” And because of that, their decisions have only pushed us farther against that party and into the waiting arms of the GOP. As a result, American suburbs will like “trend red for cycles to come.”
