The blue wall being PA, MI, WI, and MN. PA is currently the most likely tipping point state, and also the most competitive of the four. This seems counterintuitive.
Democrats tend to do well in urban areas. PA has two large ones with Philly and Pittsburgh. Milwaukee and Detroit are smaller and the only large urban areas in their states. Minneapolis is of decent size, but still the only large city in MN.
Democrats tend to do well in college towns. Here it’s about even. PA has State College, the others have Madison, Ann Arbor, and with MN the flagship university is in Minneapolis. Seems about even, with a slight disadvantage to MN for doubling up.
There is also the fact that Biden is originally from Scranton, and PA is a home state for him.
Despite all that, PA is more competitive than the other three. What do you all think is the reason for that?
Pennsyltuckey. Rural Pennsylvania (particularly Western Pennsylvania) was big coal mining country back in the day. Much more in common with West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky than more farming-oriented states in the Midwest. Rural (actually just non-Philly) areas in the east tend towards old steel towns that have been without industry for a generation and are particularly receptive to Trump’s promise to bring the steel industry back. AFAIK WI and MN rural areas have always been agricultural and don’t have the old failed industrial economy. The struggling industrial areas in MI are generally in the metro Detroit area, not so much in the rural areas.
Washington Post did a series on the regional breakdowns of some of the swing states. Here’s the the one on Pennsylvania:
I don’t think it directly answers your question, but in 2016, Clinton won Philly area by about 476k votes and Allegheny (Pittsburgh) by about 108k. Conversely, Trump took Dutch country by 225k, Central by 265k, and the West (minus Pittsburgh) by 240k. To a first approximation, I think your answer is: Democrats win less overwhelmingly in Pittsburgh than you think, and Pittsburgh and Philly dominate the state (population-wise) slightly less than you think.
The situation is described above, a large state, largest east of the Mississippi, with two huge metropolitan areas and their affluent suburbs, and a ton of space in between that was once occupied by the down-trodden pawns of the industrial revolution but now is largely filled by old cultural conservatives who have no real interests of their own to vote for and go around shouting “Keep your government hands off my social security”.
The interesting part here is the affluent congenitally conservative suburbs. The cities are solidly blue, the wasteland in between solidly red, while the suburbs have their own political culture. They are positive all taxes are bad and don’t want ‘those people’ in their neighborhoods, but they have a little bit of a moral compass unlike their southern and western brethren and they will grudgingly vote for a Democrat if they are the more responsible or honest candidate. It is that group that makes the state a potential toss-up.
Well, I can’t speak for ALL of Pennsylvania, but my mother’s family all hail from Allentown area. Lancaster County, New Tripoli, Emmaus, Germantown, even as far as Scranton and Moosic.
I see them almost every year since I was born in 1970. Even now, I fly from CA to PA for family reunions (hopefully there’s one next year). Grew up with many of them in a distance living in Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston…
Not one of the communities I mentioned in PA above will ever, EVER be less than 80% GOP in any election. Ever. I hear it every year. The Democrats wanna take our beliefs away from us! Heavy protestant and catholic and baptist “values” are held higher than ever.
None of my mother’s family is affluent, though I was lucky enough to be close. I moved around and went to private schools. My cousins had victory parties planned at their public schools for GOP wins in senate, house and presidencies.
Majority of these communities are union job families. Latchkey kids, parents with TWO JOBS?? (Unheard of for me, although the more affluent areas I lived were politically mixed but mainly heavily GOP.)
Out of a family with ten kids (five boys and five girls), I think my mother was the only family member to vote for three democratic presidents. Biden will be her third.
I also have relatives in/near Pittsburgh. Truckers. Lifetime. Generations. All GOP.
Pennsylvania is not a state that can simply be figured out by area income/kids/charity/whatever. Politics go back generations. Beliefs go back generations. To be honest, I’d say PA is THE LEAST likely state to go blue this time.
I’m sure this analysis is correct in terms of your direct experience. But PA had gone blue every election since Bill Clinton’s first victory in 1992. Until Trump flipped it red. So there is something missing in this reasoning. I’m just not sure exactly what it is that’s missing.
JTC, I’m saying in areas I"m familiar with that are not very affluent, liberals don’t hold the majority. And yes, I’m aware PA went blue before, but THIS time around, I sincerely doubt it. I hope Joe visits PA many more times than just the town hall.
There was a New York Times article on Pa politics. recently. One comment I remember is that the rural north is so conservative that according to the local Democratic chairman, Rush Limbaugh is considered middle of the road. Most of the state is either rural or old small town. Of course the big population centers counterweight that, but only just. It is generally a Democratic state, but a conservative one.
Biden’s plan to end fracking has to be hurting him in PA, which is a huge gas/oil/fracking state.
Pennsylvania was a blie collar democratic state. The Democrats’ shift to identity politics and ‘green’ politics rather than meat and potatoes blue-collar issues helped Trump i 2016, and it will help him now.
How do you think the heqvy industry in Pennsylvania feels about carbon taxes? How do you think their oil and gas economy will fare under a green new deal?
The story of Trump’s success has largely been one of winning over blue collar Democrats who feel abandoned by their party.
Once again, the data (i.e. Nate Silver) very strongly suggests that it’s white grievance, not economics, that was the strongest motivator to move some Democrats to Trump. The party isn’t going to get white grievance voters back without alienating other groups. Right now, the polls suggest they’ve made up for the loss of some low education white voters by gaining college educated white voters. We’ll see.
PA has been devastated by the loss of industry like Ohio and West Virginia. If it weren’t for Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, PA would be more red than blue. Thank fuck for Philadelphia and Allegheny Counties. There’s some evidence that Montgomery, Bucks, and Delaware (Metro Phila) may not be so good to Trump this year.
Hey, I’m just talking about what the voters in PA might think. I’m not crying. If you lose the Presidency because of this, it’ll hurt Democrats, not Republicans.
In the long run, it’s going to hurt the voters in PA, because the Republicans will talk a great game, but do precisely two things for them: Diddley and Squat…and Diddley just went on tour with Fats Domino. But, I guess voters in PA give the same two things about what their grandkids are going to breathe and drink.
This is the problem with America, more than anything else: having to cater to the lower common denominator, or more to the point, having to cater to people who can see past their own eyelashes.
If the people of Pennsylvania move towards the Republicans, it won’t be because of what the Republicans will do for them, but rather for what the Republicans won’t do to them. That specifically being the Republicans aren’t promising to shut down or stall out the best thing that has happened to PA’s economy in decades, and which employs tens of thousands of voters and benefits most people in the state.
Add in the promise to end fossil fuels, and it’s not hard to understand why Pennsylvania might decide to go another way. “Elect me and I promise to bankrupt your major industries and shut down one of your major sources of wealth,” is a surprisingly poor election pitch.
From their standpoint, if you shut down their industries, their kids might be more worried about what they are going to eat.
Yes, those horrible people worried about losing their jobs and watching the revenue that was rebuilding their state dry up and blow away, to be replaced by nebulous ‘good green jobs’. I mean, who wouldn’t trust their economic future to a vague political promise in exchange for their livelihood?
This is why Biden is out doing his will-he/won’t-he shuck and jive over whether or not he hates fracking. He’s caught between an electoral necessity and an angry base. If he comes out and says, “Yes, I still plan to end fracking,” it could cost Democrats three states or more. But if he kisses up to the frackers, it will make his base very cross with him. He has to figure out where the line is with the right balance.
Joe’s never been very good at that sort of thing. This is why we invented popcorn.
As right-wingers have said numerous times regarding workers’ rights and job-safety standards, “Get another job.” As to what their kids are going to eat, hope they don’t have a hankering for seafood, because that’s probably not going to around if the ocean’s temps keep rising. When Pennsylvania is going to be unlivable in a generation because the air is so polluted, I guess we’ll call that a “vague political promise,” too! But thank God, at least Pennsies didn’t have to go back to school to learn a new trade! How unAmerican would that have been??
Hillary was punished for being honest with the coal miners. Coal isn’t coming back, it simply isn’t economical anymore and is environmentally unsound. Fracking might not be disastrous everywhere but it certainly has an environmental cost and is indeed a disaster in some places. It certainly isn’t the great savior of jobs that right wingers make it out to be. Time for Pennsylvanians to come to grips that if they’re going to compete in the new economy, they have to quit pinning their hopes on the old economy.
