Carbon County, once a comfortably safe Democratic stronghold, is on the verge of tilting to Republican.

According to voter registration figures released this month by the Pennsylvania Department of State in mid-December, Republicans have come to within just 78 of overtaking the Democrats.

The question is whether the so-called “Trump phenomenon” has run its course. While Trump’s presidential candidacy resulted in a surge of Republican voter registration gains in Pennsylvania in 2016, the fervor seems to have lost some steam, if the latest figures are a bellwether.

According to the Department of State, Carbon County has shown the fourth highest overall voter registration gains in the past five years among the state’s 67 counties with an 8.1 percent rise, due in large part to the 2016 increase of newly registered Republicans. Centre County, home of Penn State University, with a 9.8 percent increase during that five-year stretch, was the state leader.

The Carbon Republican registration figures showed a dramatic gain of 17 percent between 2015 and 2016, adding 2,528 new voters; Carbon Democrats, on the other hand, showed virtually zero growth, adding just 66 voters to their list during the same period. Democrats still lead with 18,128 registered voters to the Republicans’ 18,050, according to the mid-December figures.

Two decades ago, in 1997, the Democrats enjoyed a voter registration lead of about 3,000.

Three of the other four counties in the Times News area have maintained healthy Democratic voter registration leads. Schuylkill County remains solidly Republican.

Statewide, both parties have lost voters so far this year compared to November 2016. Election officials, however, say such a drop is common in the year following a presidential election. They believe that with growing interest in the 2018 midterm elections, voter registration may surge in the months leading up to the May primaries.

Both parties have something to prove. Republicans want to show that the gains made to support Trump weren’t a one-time fluke, while Democrats want 2018 to be a referendum on Trump’s first year in office.

In some parts of the country, Democratic voter registration is up briskly, but that has not shown to be the case locally. In 2018, all Pennsylvania voters will select a U.S. Senator — Bob Casey Jr. is the incumbent Democrat running for re-election and will be challenged by, among others, Republican U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta of Hazleton. All voters will also choose a governor — incumbent Democrat Tom Wolf is running for re-election.

In our area, two of the four members of the U.S. House of Representatives, all members of the state House of Representatives and half of the members of the state Senate will stand for re-election. Two exceptions are in the 15th Congressional District (Lehigh and part of Northampton counties) where incumbent Republican Charlie Dent is retiring, and in the 11th Congressional District where Barletta said he is giving up his seat in his bid to unseat Casey. Matt Cartwright of Moosic, Lackawanna County, who represents all of Schuylkill and parts of Carbon and Monroe counties, and Tom Marino of Williamsport, whose district includes parts of Monroe County, will seek re-election.

Marino had announced that he would not seek re-election, because President Donald Trump had tapped him to become the next drug czar, but Marino asked the president to withdraw his name after reports surfaced that legislation he sponsored hindered the Drug Enforcement Administration in its fight against the U.S. opioid crisis. It was at this point that Marino decided to seek re-election to Congress.

Democrats have lost far more registered voters statewide than Republicans during the last year. Democrats showed a loss of nearly 188,000 or 4.5 percent, while Republicans have lost nearly 79,000 or 2.4 percent. There are now more than 8.6 million registered voters in Pennsylvania going into the 2018 midterm elections. The Democrats have about 807,000 more registered voters than the Republicans, mostly in the big cities of Allentown, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and in southeastern and south-central counties.

In addition to decreases within the two major parties, the number of nonaffiliated or third-party registered voters has decreased, as well — by about 24,300 or 2 percent. There are 1.18 million registered voters in these categories.

Here are the most recent voter registration figures for the other four Times News counties:

• Schuylkill, 43,081 Republicans and 31,883 Democrats.

• Monroe, 52,120 Democrats and 36,678 Republicans.

• Northampton, 83,432 Democrats and 71,635 Republicans

• Lehigh, 109,941 Democrats and 78,224 Republicans.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com