A surge of Black women and young people registering to vote in Pennsylvania spells trouble for Trump

New voter registrations surged among Black women and young people in Pennsylvania when Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, according to newly released data.

In the week that Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election, new registrations increased by 262 per cent among Black women under 30 compared to the same week in 2020.

Registrations among Black voters increased by 110 per cent, and among voters under 30 years old by 59 per cent, also compared to the same week in 2020.

All of those demographic groups lean heavily towards voting for Democrats.

The new data, shared with The Independent by Democratic political data firm TargetSmart, is likely to provide a significant boost to the Harris campaign in the must-win state.

It is the first voter registration data from the state to be released after the week of July 21, when Harris became the presumptive nominee, and may signal a shift in the race that is not yet showing in polls.

Current polling shows a virtual dead heat between Harris and Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, a state that Biden won by a little over 80,000 votes to clinch victory.

While the raw numbers of new voters may only number in the thousands, they show an enthusiasm among traditional Democratic voting groups that could be game-changing, according to Tom Bonier, a veteran Democratic political strategist and senior advisor to TargetSmart.

“The big question we’re all trying to answer is who’s going to turn out, where the energy lies, and if there’s an asymmetrical distribution of enthusiasm between the parties,” he told The Independent.

“This data is suggesting that women, younger voters, voters of color, and then especially younger women of color are going to vote at a much higher