A new Spotlight PA report finds that Pennsylvania’s independent and third party voter rolls are growing, even as the state’s political system continues to make it difficult for candidates outside the two major parties to translate that growth into electoral success.
Spotlight PA’s Kate Huangpu reported this week that 16.5% of Pennsylvania voters are now registered with either no party or a third party, up from 13.1% in April 2016. Still, the report notes that growth has not produced a similar rise in independent elected officials, with no independents currently serving in the state legislature or holding statewide office.
The article centers in part on Lehigh County Commissioner Ron Beitler, who left the Republican Party earlier this year and registered with no party in a move he called “political suicide.”
Beitler told Spotlight PA that his former party affiliation had become a barrier to communicating with constituents and that his daily responsibilities remained virtually unchanged after the switch. Still, he acknowledged that running without party support makes collecting signatures, raising money, and building name recognition much more difficult in a system he said is “structured to maintain that two-party control.”
Spotlight PA also spoke with former state Sen. John Yudichak, who left the Democratic Party in 2019 and later caucused with Republicans, as well as state Sens. Lisa Boscola and Tony Williams, two Democrats who affiliated with the Forward Party in 2023 while remaining registered Democrats. Despite their Forward affiliation, Boscola and Williams told the outlet they intend to remain with the Democratic Party, pointing to Pennsylvania’s closed primaries, party branding and infrastructure, and what Boscola called a system not set up for independents to succeed as significant advantages.
Read the full report at Spotlight PA.
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