There are a record number of crossover, newly-registered Democratic voters in Pennsylvania.
State Democratic party officials touted a record-level four million registered Democratic voters in anticipation of the upcoming primary on April 22. The Philadelphia suburbs and the state’s central region, including counties where Republicans still outnumber Democrats, had some of the highest proportions of party-switchers.
The article speculates that this is a reflection of Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos, but I recently spoke to pollster and political science professor G. Terry Madonna of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, and he said that in his conversations with local reporters around the state, he’s hearing that most of the switchers are Obama voters (at least initially), as that campaign has been targeting persuadable independents and Republicans. He hears the Clinton campaign has focused more on registering new voters.
I’ll let Rush decide when to say when, but with Hillary having survived Ohio and Texas, looking good in Pennsylvania, pretty good in West Virginia and Kentucky, and at least competitive in North Carolina (maybe) Indiana and Oregon (maybe), it would appear Operation Chaos is more than halfway to success. Only a series of surprising wins by Obama in the few remaining contests could keep this from going all the way to the convention.