Pennsylvania brings protest votes to center stage

Beneath the surface of Pennsylvania’s mostly sleepy primary was a trend that's stalked Joe Biden and Donald Trump across the country: a substantial protest vote.

Beneath the surface of Pennsylvania’s mostly sleepy, boring, low-turnout primary Tuesday was a trend that has stalked Joe Biden and Donald Trump across the country over the past month: a substantial protest vote.

This time, though, the candidate who drew more attention for the protest he faced was not the current president but the former one. 

Trump got about 36,000 more protest votes than Biden, even though Biden faced an organized protest campaign from left-wing critics of his policy on Israel and its military campaign in Gaza. What’s more, Pennsylvania is the only front-line battleground state to have held closed primaries since Biden and Trump clinched their parties’ nominations, meaning only registered party voters were able to vote for — or against — their parties’ presumptive nominees. 

That was particularly noteworthy on the Republican side, after Trump allies repeatedly attributed earlier swing-state protest votes to independents and Democrats who were able to cross over and vote in open primaries, as opposed to any intraparty blowback.

More than 163,000 Republican voters cast ballots for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the presidential race last month, or submitted write-in ballots. On the Democratic side, at least 127,000 voters either voted for Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., who also ended his presidential bid last month, or cast write-in votes.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/pennsylvania-trump-biden-protest-votes-rcna149261

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