Over 1 million voters switched to the Republican Party over the last year


Over 1 million voters across 43 states have switched to the Republican party over the last 12 months, in what The Associated Press, which ran the analysis, is calling a "dire warning" for the Democratic Party.
The shift is most pronounced in the suburbs, "where well-educated swing voters who turned against [former President Donald Trump's] Republican Party in recent years appear to be swinging back," AP writes. There has also been some GOP momentum "around medium-size cities" like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Augusta, Georgia.
Though party switching is a relatively normal occurence, it appears Democrats are losing their Trump-era edge in the total number of "party switchers" nationwide, AP reports. For example, more than 1 million people became Republicans over the last year, while just 630,000 became Democrats.
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Of course, AP notes, these numbers don't automatically guarantee midterms success for the GOP. For instance, some who went Republican are actually Democrats who wanted to vote against Trump-backed primary candidates, and will likely vote for their original party in November.
Still, "the scope and breadth of the party switching suggests something much bigger at play." Read more at The Associated Press.
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Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.
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