The Democratic Party is in a “deep political hole” with voter registration, according to an analysis published by The New York Times on Wednesday.

Between 2020 and 2024, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in all 30 states that track party affiliation when Americans register to vote, and the Times acknowledged the losses were “often by a lot.” In those 30 states, plus the District of Columbia, Democrats shed 2.1 million voters between 2020 and 2024. Republicans, meanwhile, gained 2.4 million voters.

“That four-year swing toward the Republicans adds up to 4.5 million voters, a deep political hole that could take years for Democrats to climb out from,” the Times wrote.

The major shift toward the GOP included vital swing states, such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, but Democrats also lost ground in the deep blue states of California, New York, and Massachusetts. In states where Republican voter registration was already blowing past that of the Democrats — such as Florida, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Oklahoma — GOP gains continued to grow.

New York Times: “The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters long before they even go to the polls.

Of the 30 states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections — and often by a… pic.twitter.com/gx94qL9EVP

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) August 20, 2025

While Democrats still outnumber Republicans by party registration nationwide, more newly registered voters across the country chose the Republican Party over the Democratic Party for the first time since 2018. The Times also noted that the Democrats’ voter registration numbers are helped by massive blue states like California and New York allowing people to register by party, while the largest Republican state, Texas, and many of the deep-red southern states do not.

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Decision Desk HQ’s director of data science, Michael Pruser, told the Times that there “seems to be no end” to the voter registration crisis for Democrats.

“There is no silver lining or cavalry coming across the hill. This is month after month, year after year,” he said.

In recent years, Democrats “fell asleep at the switch,” according to longtime Democratic strategist Maria Cardona. Even Tom Bonier, one of the party’s top voter registration experts, admitted to the Times that he “was wrong” after downplaying the Democrats’ registration issues last year.

“Clearly, in retrospect, we can say the Democratic Party had dug itself in too deep a hole in the preceding four years for the Harris campaign to dig itself out in the last few months,” Bonier said.

Republicans, meanwhile, adjusted their strategy following President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat and hit the gas on voter registration and ballot harvesting strategies in 2024.

“We don’t like drop boxes, to be clear,” a Republican National Committee official said in May of 2024. “We’re still going to use drop boxes if we have to, if they’re available. Same thing with harvesting: Where it’s a practice that Democrats are partaking in, we’re going to partake in it, too.”

Republicans also benefited from the efforts of activist Scott Presler, who dedicated himself from 2021 to 2024 to registering Republicans in the all-important swing state of Pennsylvania. In the summer of 2024, voter registration in Bucks County, Pennsylvania — a competitive suburb of Philadelphia — shifted to a GOP advantage for the first time since 2007, according to the Times. Trump went on to win Bucks County in the 2024 election, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to do so in the 21st century.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats held an advantage of more than 517,000 registered voters in 2020, but that lead has now fallen to fewer than 54,000. Much of that shift comes from Democrats switching their party affiliation to Republicans. From 2020 to 2025, around 314,000 registered Democrats flipped to registered Republicans, while just over 160,000 registered Republicans became registered Democrats.

Democrats are also losing support among young voters, who are shifting to the GOP. Last year, Republicans registered nearly twice as many voters under 35 as Democrats did in key states such as Nevada, the Times reported.