WASHINGTON, Pa. — In this year’s presidential election, Pennsylvania was the biggest electoral prize. And just like the former president Donald Trump improved its performance statewide compared to 2020, it also improved its performance in southwestern Pennsylvania, a region that has been increasingly red for two decades but where Democrats appeared to make at least marginal improvement in 2020 r., when Joe Biden ran for president and 2022 when Josh Shapiro he ran for governor.
Inflation was the main reason for Trump’s good performance, as it was in many places, he said Chris PetroneDemocratic consultant at Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Strategy Partners. “People wanted to blame someone, so they blamed Biden,” he said.
Mike Butleranother Democratic consultant said he didn’t see the same enthusiasm for Biden’s successor as the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. Butler said “enthusiasm” for Harris in the region was moderate.
Butler and Petrone said that through aggressive advertising, Trump and his allies managed to focus voters’ attention on border security, making it a top issue. Another topic that appeared on the airwaves was criticism of transgender women’s ability to play women’s sports.
Butler and Petrone said Harris and Democrats were unable to offer voters a clear and decisive answer on any of these issues. “There was uncertainty about her political stance,” Petrone said.
This means eighth next choice cycle I have written some post-election postmortem for PoliticsPA based on my reporting from six southwestern Pennsylvania counties: Allegheny, Beaver, Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland.
Over the course of these seven election cycles, voting patterns in the region moved away from Democrats, with the exception of Pittsburgh-based Allegheny County, which, if anything, became even bluer. Developments have followed parallel paths for both parties, with the Democratic Party morphing into an urban- and suburban-dominant state that has a robust appeal to college-educated voters, while the Republican Party has become increasingly rural and attractive to blue-collar voters, who dominate all but the county Allegheny.
In 2024, Harris achieved a modern low in the Democratic presidential candidate’s vote share in Greene (Waynesburg) and Fayette (Uniontown) counties; in both cases she fared even worse Hillary Clinton she did so in 2016. In Washington County (Washington) and Beaver County (Aliquippa), Harris did manage to outperform Clinton in 2016, albeit slightly, but in each county she underperformed Biden by more than a percentage point.
In only two of the six counties did Harris win a larger share of the vote than Biden, and in both cases only slightly.
In Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), Harris got 59.66%, slightly higher than the 59.43% Biden got in 2020. Somewhat more surprisingly, Harris improved in Westmoreland County (Greensburg), the only one of the six counties which has been a Republican stronghold for years. a quarter of a century ago. In Westmoreland, Harris won 35.42%, a hair above Biden’s 35.16% four years earlier.
“People wanted change and the question was which candidate would best deliver that change,” he said Jon Delanofinance and politics editor at KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. “Trump did better by promising the biggest change.”
Delano said he was surprised suburban areas didn’t move more strongly toward Harris.
“I don’t think the abortion issue was that important in Pennsylvania because we have a Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, who would veto any restrictions on abortion,” Delano said.
Washington, Pennsylvania, November 12, 2024 (Louis Jacobson for PoliticsPA)
One of the more striking results in southwestern Pennsylvania this year was the implosion of support for a three-term Democratic Party Senator Bob Casey. Casey’s statewide race has not yet been formally called, but his Republican rival, Dave McCormickwill likely be declared the winner. (editor’s note: Casey has since admitted)
In his first Senate run in 2006, Casey, the son of the popular moderate governor’s namesake, won all six southwestern Pennsylvania counties. In 2012, he won Allegheny, Beaver and Fayette with no worse than 41% in any of the six counties. In 2018, Casey won Allegheny and Beaver with no worse than 43% in either county.
But if Casey’s familiarity helped him perform relatively well in the reddened region in the first three races, he has bottomed out in 2024.
Beaver lost for the first time in 2024, losing 10 percentage points from his 2018 performance. He lost 15 points at Fayette, 17 points at Greene, 9 points at Washington and 7 points at Westmoreland. Even Allegheny, the only county of the six that Casey managed to win in 2024, was down 6 percentage points from its 2018 pace.
“This was the hardest election for him because he had a highly funded candidate who outraised him, and some would say outraised him,” Delano said. “The fundamental question asked of any long-term elected official is what he did while in office. Although Casey has a reputation within the party as an achiever, his public opinion has not been favorable on any key issue. People wondered what he was doing for 18 years in the Senate.”
Compared to the 2022 Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Ozwho lost to a Democrat John FettermanButler said McCormick was harder to caricature as a rug dealer.
McCormick also benefited greatly from running in a presidential year.
One consistent thing I’ve noticed in southwestern Pennsylvania under Trump is that Republicans show up for Trump in presidential years, but not necessarily in the midterm elections when his name isn’t on the ballot.
In each of the six counties, the number of Republican votes cast in the top race – for the presidency in presidential years and the Senate in midterm years – dropped significantly from presidential to midterm elections.
Between 2016 and 2018, the medium-term decline ranged from 32% to 41%, and between 2020 and 2022 – from 25% to 34%.
Democrats in the region, meanwhile, saw their largest share of votes decline between the presidential and midterm elections.
These data indicate that many voters in the region are robust Trump supporters and will shift the lever to other Republicans when they vote for him in a presidential year – but a significant portion of these voters will not vote at all in the midterm elections, displacing support from Republicans who voted less.
In other words, running in a presidential year turned out to be a gigantic plus for McCormick, at least in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Democratic strategists Mike Butler and Chris Petrone (Louis Jacobson for PoliticsPA)
Casey’s voting career may be over, but the remaining Democrats remain major players in the state and may do better than Harris in the future.
In 2022, Shapiro outperformed Harris’ 2024 result in each of the 6 counties by 9 to 12 percentage points. Fetterman outperformed Harris for 2024 by 3 to 7 percentage points.
Shapiro is “an extremely strong and compelling candidate” who “knows how to talk about his victories,” Petrone said. Fetterman, for his part, has an Everyman style that “appeals to common sense,” Butler said. “He doesn’t look or sound like other Democrats,” which is an advantage in the region.
Another radiant spot for Democrats, although somewhat overlooked in the context of the presidential and Senate races, is the Democrat’s re-election victory Rep. Chris Deluzio in the highly competitive 17th Congressional District, which includes the northern suburbs of Allegheny County and all of Beaver County,
Deluzio was elected in 2022 and this year faced a credible challenger in a Republican state Libertine. Rob Mercury. However, Deluzio held on, unlike the other two Democratic Party politicians in the House of Representatives rated as “vulnerable” this year, Reps Matt Cartwright AND Zuzanna Dzikaboth lost to challengers from districts in the eastern part of the state.
Deluzio won this year, 54-46%, a margin two points larger than his initial victory two years ago and two points larger than Biden’s victory in his district in 2020.
Observers agreed that Deluzio presented an effective message of fighting corporate power. Casey tried to make a similar argument in the Senate race, focusing on corporate “greedflation,” but observers say Casey’s presentation was less effective.
Petrone said Deluzio’s approach fits with long-standing rhetoric in the region. “Growing up, I went to union rallies and all the opposition was against corporate America,” he said.
Voters also recognized Deluzio’s efforts on rail safety following the Feb. 3, 2023, toxic chemical spill just across the border in East Palestine, Ohio. “He could have pointed to it,” Delano said.
Democrats have some other radiant spots in the region. In Cambria County (Johnstown), which borders Westmoreland County, State Libertine. Frank Burns he won re-election in an overwhelmingly pro-Trump district. And in Beaver County, Dem Libertine. Rob Matzi won a modern term. Both victories proved vital for Democrats to maintain a slim majority in the statehouse.
Still, both Burns and Matzie are long-serving incumbents whose seats have a good chance of going to the GOP once they decide to retire.
Indeed, while Democrats in southwestern Pennsylvania hope to stem the region’s red tide, the long-term shift is clear.
“I think the change will be to continue to move to the right,” Butler said.
