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Almost 19,000 Pennsylvania voters have left the Republican Party since the Capitol attack
When Diane Tyson got her driver’s license renewed Jan. 5, a DMV clerk asked whether she wanted to make any changes to her voter registration. A lifelong Republican, Tyson once ran for local office near Reading. She decided to wait: Supporters of Donald Trump were set to descend on Washington the next day as Congress met to certify his election loss.
“I wanted to see if it would be as ugly as it turned out to be,” she said.
As upsetting as the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol attack was, Tyson, 68, said watching Pennsylvania congressmen vote to throw out their own state’s election results is what soured her on the GOP.
She changed her registration to independent on Jan. 7.
“I wanted to see if it would be as ugly as it turned out to be,” she said.
As upsetting as the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol attack was, Tyson, 68, said watching Pennsylvania congressmen vote to throw out their own state’s election results is what soured her on the GOP.
She changed her registration to independent on Jan. 7.
“I knew I could not be a Republican anymore,” she said. “I just can’t — it’s not who I am. The Republican Party has gone down a deep hole that I want no part of. I don’t want an ‘R’ after my name.”
About 19,000 Pennsylvanians have left the Republican Party since Jan 6. That’s a drop in the bucket for a state with more than 8.8 million registered voters, and almost 3.5 million Republicans. But it’s also an unusually high rate of defections: Almost two-thirds of the voters who have switched parties this year left the GOP, compared with a third or less typically.
About 19,000 Pennsylvanians have left the Republican Party since Jan 6. That’s a drop in the bucket for a state with more than 8.8 million registered voters, and almost 3.5 million Republicans. But it’s also an unusually high rate of defections: Almost two-thirds of the voters who have switched parties this year left the GOP, compared with a third or less typically.
I dumped Trump back in June, but after the strong turnout in the presidential election despite his mismanagement of the pandemic - AND then his incitement to riot at the Capitol... I knew I was a man without a party for a while.
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