Like many of Pennsylvania’s independent voters, Cumberland County resident Kathryn Malinowski teeters between political parties so she can vote in primaries.
She’s currently a Democrat, but plans to switch her affiliation back to independent after casting her May primary ballot.
“There’s really nothing that fits with me and my viewpoints,” Malinowski, 40, said. “I think both parties are so extreme on either end and … that our current system is broken and used by people who only care about themselves and not the people who elected them.”
Temporarily joining a political party is the only way Malinowski and independent voters can participate in primaries, because Pennsylvania is one of a few states to exclude them from the process of selecting party nominees.
Some voting advocates warn that closed primaries, coupled with America’s dominant two-party system, essentially disenfranchise the fastest-growing group of the commonwealth’s electorate.
The proportion of Pennsylvanians registered as independent or third-party voters has steadily risen from 12% in the 2005 general election to 16% in 2025, according to data from the Department of State.
And the data shows the growth of those voters over the last two decades outpaces both major parties. Registered Democrats dropped to 43% of all Pennsylvania voters last year, after a high of 51% in 2011. Republicans’ gains, on the rise since 2015, brought their share of voters to 41% last year, rectifying a dip in registrations to match their percentage in 2005.
“Every time the voter registration numbers come out, there’s a lot of focus on the blue team and the red team,” David Thornburgh, son of former Republican Gov. Dick Thornburgh, told WITF. “But the real story always is the rise of the independents.”
“The change has not been modest,” he noted. “It’s been dramatic, year-to-year.”
For the past six years, Thornburgh has urged state lawmakers to open Pennsylvania’s primaries to independent voters. He was the chief executive at the Philadelphia-based reform group Committee of Seventy, and his group, Ballot PA Action, is leading a grassroots campaign to repeal closed primaries.
Thornburg is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed with the Commonwealth Court that argues the exclusion of unaffiliated voters from the primaries violates the Free and Equal Elections Clause of the state Constitution by weakening the impact of their votes. Justices have not determined whether they’ll hear the case. The plaintiffs did not seek an immediate remedy — only that the justices state Pennsylvania’s closed primaries violate the state Constitution.
Who are these voters?
David Ramsey, 37, is a Dauphin County resident who registered as a Republican when he turned 18 in 2006. By 2015, Ramsey said he realized he didn’t align with either major party.
“I just don’t see the point in joining a party when they’re only concerned with what their politics align with as opposed to getting compromises that can help all of us out,” Ramsey said.
Ramsey said his beliefs lean left, but the “disorganization” of the Democratic Party keeps him from changing his status as an “unaffiliated” voter.
Independent and third-party voters often lean toward one of the two major parties in their voting behavior, according to Stephen Medvic, a political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. But for whatever reason, he said, these voters have decided not to formally identify with the Republican or Democratic parties.
“There is something in the air that is making a bunch of people say, ‘I don’t want to identify — at least initially — with either party,’ “ Medvic said. “And parties have to take that seriously. They have to ask themselves, ‘Why are we not resonating with a big chunk of the electorate?’ ”
Younger Americans, think millennials and Generation X, are partly to blame for the recent spike in independent voters seen nationally, according to a Gallup poll evaluating interviews from last year. Researchers found more independents lean toward the Democratic Party than toward the GOP, despite the Democrats’ favorability ratings remaining low.
Medvic said “pure independents” who don’t lean toward either party are often among the least politically involved group on the political spectrum, and often credit their lack of participation to what they call the “unattractiveness” of either party.
Only about 10% of self-identified independents said they did not lean toward either party, according to the Gallup poll.
In states like Pennsylvania, where the margins of national and statewide elections can fall on a few tens of thousands of votes, convincing pure independents to turn out on Election Day could swing a race either way.
Encouraging residents to participate is often where grassroots groups step in.
Amy Widestrom, executive director at League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, said young voters — independent or not — find heightened polarization “deeply unappealing” and a reason to tune out of politics.
To convince voters to get involved, Widestrom said her organization teaches constituents about how their local governments, like school boards, township supervisors and county commissioners, impact their daily lives.
Political tug of war
Bernie Comfort, vice chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, told WITF that the “real story” regarding voter registration trends in the state should focus on how her party has narrowed the registration gap with Democrats.
Ten years ago, Democrats led by nearly 1 million registered voters, according to the Department of State’s data. As of November, that figure was down to just over 170,000.
But Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair Eugene DePasquale pointed out that his party is at the early stages of what he hopes is a turning of the tide. As of Jan. 26, according to DOS, Democrats led Republicans by about 172,000.
DePasquale attributed the GOP’s success to its effective outreach to ensure as many people who align with the Republican philosophy are registered to vote
“We should’ve done the same thing,” DePasqaule said, noting the party has begun to do so since he took charge last year.
‘Locked out of primaries’
How other states determine whether to allow independents to participate in primaries varies drastically, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Including Pennsylvania, 10 are entirely closed, while nine others allow the parties to decide for themselves.
According to a 2024 Franklin & Marshall College Poll, more than 3 out of 4 voters in Pennsylvania support opening Pennsylvania’s primaries to independent voters.
Legislation to do so has stalled in either chamber for decades. But state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton, said the growing number of independents should pressure leaders in the General Assembly to finally consider her proposal.
“They don’t want to disenfranchise those voters, because that’s what we do right now,” Boscola said of her other co-sponsors. “(Independents) are essentially locked out of primaries.”
Neither House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery, nor Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Bradford, responded to requests for comment.
DePasquale, a former Democratic lawmaker who championed an open primary bill while in the General Assembly, said the state Democratic Party will discuss in its February meeting whether it’ll support proposals to end Pennsylvania’s closed primary system.
Comfort’s response to whether the state GOP supports such proposals was blunt: “Republicans should be choosing our candidates.”