Blue-collar Pennsylvania county breaks decisively for GOP after 52 years

Statistics released on Monday by the Pennsylvania Department of State showed that a Democratic stronghold had flipped to the Republican column after 52 years.

After a concerted effort by Republicans to contact voters and persuade them to register, local officials said 87,415 people in Luzerne County had registered as Republicans while 87,332 had registered as Democrats.

'Our message has been received by the good people of Luzerne County.'

Republicans have topped Democrats by only 83 voter registrations.

While the gap between Republicans and Democrats is very narrow, the GOP was able to erase the massive advantage Democrats had garnered by 2011 of 47,669 registrations.

“I’m excited and relieved that our message has been received by the good people of Luzerne County,” said Luzerne County Republican Party Chairman Gene Ziemba.

Democrats say young voters support their policies but are registering as independent in order to reject party labels.

The last time Luzerne County had more Republican registrations than Democratic registrations was in 1972, when Richard Nixon won a landslide victory against George McGovern. By 1976, the numbers had flipped after the Watergate scandal that ended with Nixon resigning. In that election, Luzerne had 101K Democratic registrations and only 64K Republican registrations.

Luzerne made headlines recently when officials decided to take down four drop boxes for mail-in ballots over concerns about election integrity and financial liability.

Democrats will have until Oct. 21 to try to make up the difference in registrations ahead of the general election to be held on November 5.

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