How Harris Could Win Pennsylvania
In 2016, Donald Trump shocked many by narrowly winning Pennsylvania. His unorthodox appeal brought out unlikely voters, especially blue-collar whites, in sufficient numbers to beat Hillary Clinton. He fell short in 2020, however, and he may very well lose more decisively this time around to Kamala Harris.
An Inquirer/New York Times Sienna poll out this week contends that Harris is reassembling the Obama coalition: women, minorities, and the educated. This would suggest something closer to a 50-46% result, for reasons I outline below.
The easiest explanation is the changing demographics of Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth is a more suburban, diverse, and educated state in 2024 than it was in 2016. These are the groups that are alienated from Trump and the GOP.
The white rural population, notably in the west and north, is declining. From 2016 to 2022, the white population statewide fell by about 180,000. Of course, many whites moved into the state in the southern and eastern suburbs. For instance, Cambria County in southwestern Pennsylvania lost 16,000 people between 2010 and 2020 while Lancaster grew by double that. According to the latest poll, Trump has the support of 51% of whites, but whites make up about 2% less of the state than they did ten years before. The fastest-growing demographic in the state is Latinos, whose ranks have swelled by 200,000 since 2016. Asian Americans have grown their numbers by 80,000, blacks by 35,000, and multiracial people by 40,000.
In 2016, Trump excited the passions of unlikely voters, but in 2020 slightly more voters rejected Trump. Trump accelerated the Republican Party’s winning of less reliable voters, such as blue-collar workers. In the recent poll, Trump wins 61% of whites without a BA degree and 34% of those holding one. Harris has the inverse of those numbers.
Trump has won about a third of Latinos to his movement and seems likely to do somewhat better than that in 2024. But overall, Latinos have tended to be more pragmatic than rural whites. They are also more likely to sit out elections than are better-educated voters. This is part of the reason why Republican candidates for the state supreme court lost in 2023. If it’s unlikely that Trump wins the Keystone State, it has to do with a widening majority of its voters rejecting MAGA.
Republicans have been losing older, reliable voters to the grim reaper and suburban women to Rachel Maddow. Suburban Republicans in the “collar” counties around Philadelphia have been pro-choice since the 1970s. After the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, suburban women seemed determined to punish MAGA and Republican politicians. For instance, in 2023, the Republican candidate for the state supreme court won 46% of the vote statewide but just 41% in Chester County and less than that in Montgomery County.
Trump will probably lose the Philly collar counties by a wider margin than in 2020. A deeper dive into the polling shows Trump winning 39% of the Philly suburbs. Not coincidentally, just 39% of women plan to vote for Trump statewide. And only about 9% of registered Republicans plan to vote for Harris—but that’s 50% more than the 6% in the last election who chose the Democratic nominee.
The fury that women, and many men, feel about the consequences of the Dobbs decision has fundamentally altered the electoral math. The anger shows no signs of abating. ProPublica recently ran a story of a single mother dying because doctors refused to intervene, orphaning her six-year son. These stories are heartrending and personal, and they drive voters to the polls.
Republicans made a poor trade, as many of the MAGA voters are really Trump voters. Far fewer have been turning out in nonpresidential elections. But anti-MAGA voters are more reliable, and their rage, and terror, are likely to drive them to the polls as long as the GOP embraces MAGA.
The state is increasingly college-educated. In 2010, 27% of Pennsylvanians had a four-year degree; in 2020, it was 35%. Highly educated voters are less Republican. As Charles McElwee has reported, doctors and medical professionals, once reliably GOP voters and donors, have become predominantly Democratic supporters.
Finally, Kamala Harris is not Hillary Clinton. Harris is running like she’s three points behind rather than four points ahead. She is more likely to bring out black voters in Philly who were subdued in their support for Biden. Likewise, many suburban women see her as a gladiator for their cause and a role model for their children. She is running a traditional campaign with mobilized money, volunteers, paid staff (50 offices) and several allied organizations such as Casa in Action as well as unions. She also has a robust digital campaign, which enables her to direct targeted ads to specific groups of voters.
For his part, Trump in 2016 was talking about things that many people wanted to hear but no politician was willing to say. Now he’s talking about things that people either don’t understand or that don’t affect them – notably, the 2020 election. The issue of immigration is a potent one, but talking about Haitian refugees eating dogs is bizarre.
Attempts to claim that Charleroi, an industrial town in southwestern Pennsylvania, has been overrun with immigrants are falling flat. As in Springfield, elected officials reject the idea that immigrants have ruined their area. As the borough manager told CBS, “They come here. They buy property. They open businesses. They work here. They pay taxes. So for us, at the end of the day, it has been a benefit.” The area’s Republican state senator echoed this view.
An additional danger for the GOP is that if Trump’s prospects dim over the next few weeks, some low-propensity voters will become dispirited. Why vote if you know your candidate will lose? If enough see Trump’s defeat as a foregone conclusion, that would hurt the party’s down-ballot prospects, such as in the state senate.
In any case, when the day comes that Donald Trump is no longer on the ballot, Pennsylvania Republicans will need to rethink how to win statewide offices.
