Increased turnout in rural counties, subdued Democratic vote

Donald Trump nearly replicated his 2016 path to the White House, demolishing the so-called Blue Wall of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to become only the second president elected to a second nonconsecutive term.

The Keystone State was the biggest prize of the seven swing states in the Nov. 5 presidential election, and by the time most people woke up the next morning it had already been called in his favor, unlike in 2020 when it wasn’t until the Saturday after the election that the race was called.

“The Democrats have just lost touch with their working-class base, and they’ve done that in every way in terms of the policies that they’re pursuing, the language that they speak to the public with, and their personas,” Mercyhurst University political science professor Joe Morris said. “Pennsylvania is, at its heart, a blue-collar state where people get up and go to work for a living. And the Democrats have kind of lost sight of that.”

Of the 6.9 million votes cast, Trump won 3.5 million, or 50.5%, to Harris’ nearly 3.4 million votes, or 48.5%.

A USA Today Network analysis of unofficial election results found that Trump increased his 2020 support in 65 of the state’s 67 counties, the exceptions coming in Greene and Allegheny counties, to add nearly 148,000 votes.

Harris, by comparison, lost the support of 64,000 voters from President Joe Biden’s vote total in the state, with turnout failing to materialize in large metro areas, most notably in Philadelphia County.

She lost more than 36,000 votes in Philadelphia from Biden’s 2020 showing, while Trump added more than 11,400. In neighboring Bucks and Montgomery counties, Harris lost another 8,800 votes in each, while Trump picked up 9,600 and 10,300 votes, respectively, from four years earlier.

And after four years of feigning distrust over the legitimacy of mail-in voting, Trump increased his share of that vote by 10%, or 65,000 votes, while Harris saw a 37% drop (743,250) in the mail-in vote and a 50% increase in the number of same-day votes (709,517).

“Donald Trump managed to run up his margins in all of the places everywhere outside of major metropolitan areas of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia,” Morris said. “That’s something that the Democrats should have been aware of in 2024. You’re not going to win a place like Pennsylvania if you don’t do exactly what Donald Trump did.”

Trump also won Erie and Northampton counties. Only 16 counties in the country have followed their voting pattern of backing the Democrat in 2008 and 2012 (President Barack Obama), switching to the Republican (Trump) in 2016, then back to the Democrat (Biden) in 2020 and, finally, back to Trump in 2024.

Two other counties, Bucks and Monroe, also flipped for Trump after backing Biden in 2020.

The economy in Pennsylvanians’ presidential choice

Chris Borick, a political science professor and the director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Allentown, said Trump stuck to his message throughout the campaign, talking to voters about the economy and immigration.

“The change and the drop-off was really big among Democrats nationally compared to Republicans,” he said. “And so where do you start to see the cracks? Where, in places like Pennsylvania, were the changes? And the reality is, it’s across the spectrum, which is by itself telling. Trump made gains among Latino and Hispanic voters. Marginal gains, not gigantic, but gains nonetheless among black voters, younger voters. I give credit to campaigns for what they do, but largely it’s a broader feeling right now that transcends these demographics.”

Trump’s victory in the Electoral College was “decisive,” and he’s going to be the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote, albeit by a slim margin, said Borick. However, also notable is that GOP victories across Pennsylvania and other swing states were competitive and came down to a couple hundred thousand votes, as was the case for Democrats in 2020.

For that reason, Borick said, it’s “probably not the case” that Trump and the GOP won a mandate from voters.

“It’s resounding in the sense that Republicans had a wonderful night, but that wonderful night was very close with outcomes of a point or two, and that has to be part of the story. This wasn’t an election that was won by wide margins. They were competitive margins.”

Other factors in Trump’s victory

Trump established a base in Pennsylvania in 2016 by stumping in smaller, rural communities. That base has remained loyal to him, Morris said. He appealed to voters because he spoke about bread-and-butter issues, like gas prices, in a way that others can’t.

“He did talk to us about these things in a language that people understood,” Morris said. “He used the vernacular. Listening to Donald Trump was like listening to your buddy at the bar.”

Harris, by contrast, didn’t enter the race until mid-July, when President Joe Biden exited the race amid pressure from the party over concerns about his age and health. She had to vet and select a running mate and secure the support from delegates before the Democratic National Convention in late August. she rolled out most of her policy positions with less than three months before Election Day.

The Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war and the humanitarian crisis it has created for Palestinians may have cost Harris votes in some areas of the country, especially in Michigan.

A more socially conservative electorate?

Gender-based issues also played a role in Harris’ loss, although to a lesser degree than the economy.

Borick said women’s reproductive rights was very important to voters following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, but might not have had “the same determinative effect” that it did in 2022, when voters in even the most conservative of states, Kansas, and five other states either struck down attempts to prohibit abortion or voted to enshrine the right in their state constitutions.

There were also social issues at play as Trump pushed back against Harris on transgender rights, including the inclusion of transgender females participating in women’s sports and the federal government paying for gender-affirming care for federal inmates, a policy that was actually in place under Trump.

Borick noted that Americans, according to polls, have become more socially conservative since the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. That shift to the right is evident among several demographic groups, including young males. Trump found “leverage points” and exploited them.

“Her statements regarding some policies related to the trans community certainly opened the door for the types of attacks she received,” Borick said. “There’s a lot of context that’s not given there, but that’s true of every election.”

Morris said the presidential race went beyond issues of abortion and transgender rights.

“I don’t know if this will ever show up on a poll, or if anyone will ever acknowledge this, but this campaign I think was all about gender, involving not only the issue of abortion and the issue of transitioning and transgender athletes in sports, but it was also about two competing definitions of masculinity and femininity.”

Matthew Rink can be reached at [email protected] or on X at @ETNRink. 

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Trump in Pa.: Decisive victory at polls ‘transcends demographics’