Pennsylvania has been a key swing state for much of modern history. Though the Keystone State has trended bluer in recent elections, leading to the formation of the so-called “blue wall” consisting of the Rust Belt states of Penn., Mich., and Wis., as well as other Northeastern states. However, Donald Trump managed to break through this blue wall, winning the state by a mere 44,000 votes (a 0.7 percent margin) in 2016. This has pushed the state back again into the swing state column, and both campaigns are heavily targeting the state this year.
Pennsylvania has a strange mix of extremely conservative, rural voters, as well as extremely liberal city-dwellers. The main Democratic stronghold is Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth most-populous city and the largest city in the state. Smaller cities like Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Scranton, and Allentown often lean Democratic too. Republicans are dominant in the rest of the state, where it is much more rural and conservative. The true swing areas lie in the suburbs of cities, which could flip either way.
Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes, which is a one of the nation’s largest electoral prizes. However, the entire Rust Belt is seeing population decline, and the Keystone State is expected to lose yet another electoral vote after reapportionment following the 2020 Census.
In 2016, in a massive upset, the state voted for Trump by a very narrow margin of 0.7 percent, breaking the “blue wall” long thought to be untouchable for the Republicans. It was the first time since 1988 since a Republican president won here, and the first time since 1948 since Pennsylvania has voted to the right of the country. This was due to Trump being able to carry practically all of the rural counties, while some central counties that typically vote Democratic also swung for Donald Trump.
However, the “blue wall” looks to have been rebuilt. In the 2018 midterms, for instance, the Democrats netted three gains in the state’s U.S. House delegations, resulting in a tie. The Democrats also held on to a U.S. Senate seat here. Though the Democrats’ comparatively strong performance here in the midterms can partially be attributed to 2018 being a blue wave year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court also struck down the state’s congressional map, claiming the state’s districts were unfairly drawn to favor Republicans.
In addition, Joe Biden has not failed to mention (continuously) that he was born in Pennsylvania and has put a lot of attention and money into the state. Ad spending has been very high in this state for both candidates—$195 million has already been spent so far on both sides ($122 million from Biden and allies, $74 million from Trump and allies).
That spending and constant rallying in the state has played off really well for Biden. He is now the clear favorite to win the state, with him leading by 7.1 percent on the statewide polling average. He also already holds a majority in the polls, which means no matter which way undecided voters split, Biden will still win the state. Even a very Republican-leaning C- rated pollster, Trafalgar Group, shows Biden up by two percent. The rest of the polls show Biden typically up by seven percent.
On FiveThirtyEight’s forecast, Biden has an astounding 88 percent chance of carrying the state, with the projected vote share being 46 to 52 percent for Biden.
This is by far Biden’s largest lead in this category since the start of the campaign season, and the number only seems to be continually moving in favor of Joe Biden. The chart below shows how this number has changed over time.
This is a far cry from 2016, where Hillary Clinton was only leading by low single-digits (two to three percent) in the state. In fact, Trump’s narrow victory was well within the margin of error for polls, which is generally two to four percentage points.
The reason why Pennsylvania is so important is because it has the largest percentage of being the tipping point state, which is the state that brings a candidate over the 270 electoral vote threshold. It has a 28 percent chance of being the state that decides the winner of this election. That is over twice the chance for the next state, which is Florida with a 14 percent chance of deciding the election.
The state, however, is likely to tilt Republican in the future. This is due to a declining population in the state, with the number of solidly Democratic blue-collar, union workers decreasing in the Rust Belt region. In addition, progressive environmental and trade policies now being pushed more and more by the Democratic Party may also hurt them in the long run here, as many blame the state’s declining manufacturing and mining industries on these policies. In addition, Trump’s false accusations that Biden wants to ban fracking may also hurt the Democrats here.
However, as Sun Belt states like Arizona, Texas, and Georgia get bluer and bluer, that may be enough to offset Democratic losses in the Rust Belt further into the future.
This election will be critical to understanding whether or not such a large shift is occurring in the state as a whole, or if it is just a one-off fluke that happened in 2016. If Trump wins or Biden wins by a narrow margin, that could indicate the state will probably get redder and redder.
If you live in Pennsylvania, make sure to go vote. The voter registration deadline is today, and early voting in the state has begun already. The state also has vote-by-mail implemented. Click here to learn more about voting.
Make sure to check out our presidential and U.S. Senate predictions, as well as the post discussing the U.S. House elections for October. One more prediction will be released just before Election Day, so stay tuned for that.
More state analyses just like this one will be released soon. I plan to cover Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, Nebraska, Alaska, and more prior to Election Day. Check out the other state analyses of Arizona, Montana, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas too.
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