Lara Putnam

You don't think a book review can be must-read for people just trying to make political change? This one is. @daschloz.bsky.social spells out the vexed underlying dilemma of democratic (& Democratic) politics in a world where increasingly "the choirs & brass bands reach only into the educated base."

I don't believe so. The largest of the "Other" parties is Libertarian, followed by Green. Regardless, over the last 4 months other party registration is actually down by 1,258 in PA. It's Unaffiliated that has grown by 17,525.

Of course, other thing this chart shows is that growth of Independent + small party registrants is far outpacing either Dem or Rep. Research suggests those are likely folks who do tend to vote for one major party, but also have heterodox views & low trust in political institutions.
Go persuade them!

Anyway. Janelle Stelson, Bob Brooks, & even Bob Harvie have every reason to be happy with the story this map is telling

What the new regional pattern of Dem gains looks like is broader: counties gaining population—& getting younger, more cosmopolitan, & more highly educated—are powering Dem gains. I wrote about some of these trends back in2024 for the American Communities Project, fwiw...👇 bsky.app/profile/lara...

At the start of 21st century, the oldest generations in PA were very disproportionately Dem registrants (but in many cases, no longer Dem voters, at least at the top if the ticket). Loss of those generations—to death or party switching—has been a steady undertow away from Dems, regardless of events

You might wonder whether shifts among Latino voters are part of what's driving that, but it's not that simple: Berks, Luzerne, & Monroe—PA's most heavily Latino counties—continue to follow the broader PA rust belt pattern of slowly sagging Dem registration numbers as long-ago Dem registrants die off

And here's the map of where those net Dem gains are coming from. Strikingly, it's not just the Philly burbs + Allegheny, the epicenters of college-educated voters repudiation of DJ Trump in his first presidency. the Capitol region, SCPA, and Lehigh county are looking strong for Dems as well

Here's the new chart. Overall number go up and down (drops come because individuals pass away or move—or change parties—or because counties push updates with long-inactive voters finally removed). But since then end of Sept 2025, Dems have done better than Republicans every single month.

New numbers: In the month of October, net voter registration trends turned positive for Dems in Pennsylvania. Unprecedently [in recent memory], Dem gains have outpaced Republicans every single month since then

No, not just an expected adjustment: from late 2022 onward, Dems were losing ground even in areas (SEPA esp, also SCPA, even Allegheny) that had been strong for them even amid regional realignment. But, this last month: areas that saw Dem growth in 2017-19 & 2022 grew once more👇

As a reminder, PA's implementation of AVR since Sept 2023 proactively asks everyone renewing their DL to reconfirm their party reg choice, which unsurprisingly has led to an increase in party-switching.
So kind of functions like a slow-rolling poll of 1/4 of much of the PA electorate yearly now?

In the 4 months between the announcement of the Dobbs decision & Nov 2022 election, Dems gained a net 9,500 voters. before that you have to go back to summer-fall 2019 to find a multi-month stretch that was net positive for Dems in PA

And by "in recent memory" I mean that Dems have not had a month with a 2,000 net gain over the GOP since the Dobbs-backlash summer of 2022 I believe?

Take this fwiw, but the last month of partisan voter registration shifts in Pennsylvania have looked better for Dems than any month in recent memory🤷‍♀️

‘It broke me’: Inside the FBI hunt for the online predators who persuaded a 13-year-old to die The suicide of a 13-year-old from Washington state set off a years-long global investigation to find an elusive online user called “White Tiger.”

Adding this new, awful, tragic reporting here. Again, the real risks now are not about what kids might see online. They're about what cameras in kids' hands allow people online to make kids do. www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

worst risk was no longer What might my child see online? It's What might my child be manipulated into doing?

To themselves or others.

@jenatmartin.bsky.social & I tried to grapple with this grim new world—in which harms scale & traditional action against them cannot—here yjolt.org/everything-n...

I do understand the range of problems associated with age-verification mandates. But we need to be clear about the kind of harms underway. Once cameras connected to the internet via two-way communications platforms reached children's hands en masse, the bsky.app/profile/lara...

Sextorters are targeting young boys online — and flaunting how rich the scam is making them | CBC News There's a network of overseas scammers targeting and blackmailing teens, and in some cases driving them to suicide within hours of falling into a trap known as sextortion. CBC's Marketplace created fake social media profiles to investigate the business behind the blackmail.

More reporting on more tragedies created by smartphones with cameras in children's hands www.cbc.ca/news/marketp...

Memo: ActBlue's New AUP After 30 Days TO: ActBlue and interested partiesFROM: Haley Bash (Donor Organizer Hub) and Josh Nelson (Civic Shout)DATE: Monday, September 22, 2025RE: 30 days under ActBlue’s new Account Use Policy BACKGROUN...

Update: How is ActBlue's notional new accountability regime going? See very interesting open letter to ActBlue from Haley Bash and Josh Nelson (neither of whom is on here, I think?) docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Looks great! will read! Ty!

Butler Dems are fabulous: I am the world's biggest Catherine Lalonde fan. Dems' percent of pres vote rose there from 33.5% in '20 to 33.8% in '24: impressive, given nat'l trends. But because total votes cast in Butler grew too, Kamala's net vote total out of Butler was 2,200 votes worse than Biden

Meanwhile, shout out to ‪@mattroan.bsky.social‬ : Kamala '24 improved on Joe Biden's net votes by *955 votes* in Cumberland County, pretty much unheard of statewide. Cumberland Dems, take a bow!

So this trend highlighted by @mikemadrid.bsky.social has really important implications for Pennsylvania. That is, if it continues, and if Democrats are able to make the case to PA's Latino communities that they can be trusted with things that matter (the economy, first & foremost).

(This map is a decade old, so add like about 5 percentage points to % Hispanic population in all counties along La Ruta 222. I should find you a more recent one!)

Meanwhile relative resilience of Harris totals in Lehigh Valley came despite major declines in Latino areas of Berks, Lancaster, Lehigh.

Harris lost ground vs Biden pretty much everywhere in the US. So to me, how much of 2020 gains did Dems manage to hang onto in site of that is a useful thing to know, if you are trying to understand how much of PA's 2020 realignment is going to stick moving forward. Answer: in SEPA, most but not all

Why look at this? 2016 saw huge jump towards GOP in western PA, & rural PA in general. 2020 & 2024 continued upward for GOP, back to slower pace but fr that new elevated baseline. 2020 saw big jump for Dems in Allegheny & SEPA, plus some reclaiming of ground lost to GOP in NEPA, Lehigh Valley, SCPA

Harris lost ground vs Biden pretty much everywhere in the US. So to me, how much of 2020 gains did Dems manage to hang onto in site of that is a useful thing to know, if you are trying to understand how much of PA's 2020 realignment is going to stick moving forward. Answer: in SEPA, most but not all

re why telling: 2016 saw huge jump towards GOP in western PA, plus rural PA in general. 2020 & 2024 continued upward for GOP, back to slower pace but fr that new elevated baseline. 2020 saw big jump for Dems in Allegheny & SEPA, plus some reclaiming of ground lost to GOP in NEPA, Lehigh Valley, SCPA