Pennsylvania has been known as a swing state for 60 years. In every Presidential election during that time, the Democratic Presidential candidate did better there than nationally. John Kerry won it by a 2.5% margin and carried 13 of 67 counties (Allegheny, Beaver, Bucks, Delaware, Erie, Fayette, Lackawanna, Lehigh, Luzerne, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia, and Washington.) Al Gore carried 18 counties (all of these and Cambria, Carbon, Greene, Lawrence, and Mercer.)
Barack Obama also carried 18 counties (the Kerry counties minus Beaver, Fayette, and Washington plus Berks, Cambria, Carbon, Centre, Chester, Dauphin, Elk, and Monroe.) He picked up eight Bush counties and McCain picked up three Kerry counties. Obama only lost ground in six southwestern counties (the three that turned red and Armstrong, Lawrence, and Westmoreland.) The four counties of Berks, Chester, Dauphin, and Monroe went blue for the first time since LBJ in 1964. The closest counties were Monroe in 2004 (GWB by four votes) and Mercer in 2008 (McCain by 173 votes.)
There is an interesting paradox with the Commonwealth’s 19 Congressional districts. In 2004, Kerry won 10 of them, with the 15th being the closest (he carried by 103 votes.) Despite Obama winning statewide by over 10%, the 12th CD was the only one in the nation to flip to McCain and Obama came up only 17 votes short in the 3rd CD. Therefore, Obama only carried nine districts, although he only lost the normally-Republican 16th and 17th districts by 3-4 point margins. This should teach us to distrust a CD-based system of electors (like Maine and Nebraska) in more populous states. It is subject to gerrymandering, as the GOP did in 2001 in Pennsylvania.
The Commonwealth’s PVI is D+2.2. Here are the counties ranked by PVI:
D+31: Philadelphia
D+8: Delaware, Lackawanna
D+7: Allegheny, Montgomery
D+6: Erie
D+3: Lehigh, Monroe
D+2: Bucks, Luzerne, Northampton
D+1: Centre, Fayette
EVEN: Chester
R+1: Beaver, Berks, Carbon, Dauphin
R+2: Cambria, Elk, Greene, Mercer, Washington
R+3: Lawrence
R+6: Clinton, Indiana, Schuylkill, Warren
R+7: Columbia, Pike
R+8: Crawford
R+9: Clearfield, Westmoreland, Wyoming
R+10: Forest, Northumberland, Susquehanna
R+11: Wayne
R+12: Cumberland, Lancaster, McKean, Montour, Venango, York
R+13: Armstrong, Sullivan
R+14: Bradford, Clarion
R+15: Adams, Cameron, Lebanon, Somerset
R+16: Blair, Butler, Lycoming
R+17: Huntingdon, Tioga
R+18: Jefferson
R+19: Snyder
R+20: Franklin, Mifflin
R+21: Juniata, Perry, Potter
R+24: Bedford
R+27: Fulton
This post is under construction.
could be nice.
in relation to the 2008 election is that it did not perform entirely as expected.
Please have patience. This page is under construction and I only have rudimentary HTML knowledge, although I intend to include two maps from the Swing State Analysis of PA. I’m leaving for a seven-day, seven-night cruise on Sunday and will try to get done what I can before then. The CD map didn’t play out as planned particularly in 2006, but Congressional races have their own dynamics independent of concurrent Presidential races. Let’s not let Corbett and Sam Smith do an even-worse job next year!
This proves how bizarre the politics are in Pennsylvania and how PVI has its limits beyond presidential races. We got a D+8 county, Delaware, where the Republicans hold over 2/3 of the State Rep and State Senate seats, but we got a R+9 county, Westmoreland, where the exact opposite is true.