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Watching the tectonic plates of voter trends

by Tom Ferrick

The fundamentals of Pennsylvania politics are changing. The old formulas for winning statewide no longer apply. The Republican Party is going to have an increasingly hard time winning statewide elections.

Those are three conclusions I reached after analyzing voting patterns in the state going back nearly 30 years. The results confirm a pro-Democratic shift that has become evident in voter registration numbers in recent years, but there are surprises (number geeks who are so inclined can download an Excel spreadsheet of the data I compiled here).

Voter habits rarely change quickly. They are like tectonic plate movements-with slow drift in one direction or another over time. For example, when Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Bill of 1964, he correctly predicted that it would cost the Democratic Party the South. It did, but it took years for that transformation to happen.

In the same way the last 30 years have seen Pennsylvania move from a swing state to a decidedly Democratic one. You can’t see it by looking at any single election, but a clear pattern emerges if you look back over a longer period of time.

For this analysis, I examined the results of the eight presidential elections since 1980, dividing the state into its six media markets, which are home to 98 percent of the state’s voters (the other 2 percent are in counties served by out-of-state TV stations).

Most of the races, beginning with Carter vs. Reagan in 1980 and ending with McCain vs. Obama in 2008, were competitive. I didn’t focus on U.S. Senate or gubernatorial elections, partly because there were too many blowouts by incumbents that would have skewed the results. For example, in 1990, Democrat Bob Casey Sr. defeated Barbara Hafer by more than one millions votes.

Comparing the 1980′s to this decade, the analysis shows four sections of the state that are trending Democratic, one strongly. One remains unchanged. One is trending Republican. Can you guess which is which?

Let me lay them out one by one:

Philadelphia Media Market.
Number of counties: 8.
Share of statewide vote in 2008: 42 percent
Average performance of Dem. candidates in the 1980’s: 47 percent
Average performance of Dem. candidates in the 2000’s: 61 percent
Trend: Strong Democratic.

The shift in this market is the game-changer in statewide elections. Because it is so populous, a Democrat who rolls up strong margins in the southeast can lose the rest of the state and still win an election by a comfortable margin. Just ask Gov. Ed Rendell.

For that matter, ask Barack Obama. In 2008, John McCain won 52 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania-minus the Philadelphia market. But Obama won the Philadelphia market by 740,000 votes-a monster margin that was simply too much for McCain to overcome. He would have needed 62 percent of the vote in the rest of the state to win.

Two trends are at work here: The city of Philadelphia has gone from reliably Democratic to hyper-Democratic and the surrounding suburbs, once safely Republican, have moved toward the D’s-a trend accelerated by Rendell in his two races for governor. The market also includes three counties of the Lehigh Valley.

For decades, a key element in the Republican playbook consisted of rolling up the GOP vote in the four suburban counties to offset the Democratic margin in Philadelphia. Reagan followed that strategy and won the Philadelphia market in 1980 and 1984. Since 1992, though, Democratic candidates for president have won the Philadelphia market by ever increasing margins.

In national elections, Philadelphia has been a Democratic city since FDR, but the tilt has become much more pronounced in this decade. In the 1980′s, the three Democratic candidates for president-Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis-averaged 63 percent of the vote in the city. This decade, Al Gore, John Kerry and Obama averaged 81 percent.

Several factors are at work here, one being the maturation of the African-American vote as a force in electoral politics. Blacks make up a higher percentage of the city electorate and turn out at higher rates than 30 years ago-and they vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Barack Obama got 98 percent of the black vote in Philadelphia in 2008. If you think it was because he was an African-American candidate, think again. Clinton, Gore and Kerry averaged 97 percent of the black vote in the city, according to my analysis of key wards.

Another factor is the collapse of the Republican Party as a viable entity in the city. In 1980, there were 252,000 registered Republicans in Philadelphia. Today, there are 136,000. As the city has become more diverse racially and ethnically, it has become more and more Democratic.

Pittsburgh Media Market
Counties: 12
Share: 22 percent
Avg. of Dem. candidates 1980s: 54 percent
Avg. of Dem. candidates 2000s: 51 percent
Trend: Republican

Allegheny County, which includes the city of Pittsburgh, is still reliably Democratic, but there has been a trend towards Republican candidates in surrounding counties that were once safely in the Democratic column. There are also rural counties in this market that have been and remain Republican.

Democrats are still winning here-but by smaller margins. Obama got just a shade over 50 percent of the vote last year. Why the shift? It probably has to do with the preponderance of so-called Reagan Democrats-though, ironically, Reagan himself never won the market. Another factor could be the influence of the Dick Scaife’s Tribune-Review, a crusading conservative voice in the market.

Whatever the reason, the shift is slight but real.

Harrisburg-Lancaster-York Media Market
Counties: 14
Share: 15 percent
Avg. of Dem. candidates 1980s: 32 percent
Avg. of Dem. candidates 2000s: 39 percent
Trend: Democratic.

This is the populous base of the Republican “T” with some of the most reliably GOP counties in the state. Yet, there has been a clear trend towards increased Democratic support, culminating last year when Obama got 44 percent of the vote in this market. He even won Dauphin County.

One possible factor: this an area where the population is growing and we may be seeing the influence of newcomers, who are younger and more inclined to vote Democrat.

To keep this in perspective: This is still a strong Republican area, it’s just that the GOP has gone from winning in the high 60′s to the low 60′s. Recent Democratic gubernatorial and U.S. Senate candidates have been doing better in this area as well-Rendell got 43 percent of the vote against Lynn Swann in 2006, while Bob Casey Jr. got 41 percent against Rick Santorum in the same year.

Wilkes-Barre Scranton Media Market
Counties: 13
Share: 10 percent
Avg. of Dem. candidates 1980s: 41 percent
Avg. of Dem. candidates 2000s: 48 percent
Trend: Democratic.

This market consists of a (usually) Democratic core in Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties surrounded by rural, small-town Republican counties. Surprisingly, it is in these smaller counties where the Democratic share has risen, along with Monroe County in the heart of the Poconos, an area that has attracted retirees and ex-urban New Yorkers.

Last year, Obama won this market with 52 percent of the vote, becoming became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win here since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Johnstown-Altoona Media Market
Counties: 12
Share: 6 percent
Avg. of Dem. candidates 1980s: 42 percent
Avg. of Dem. candidates 2000s: 42 percent
Trend: Unchanged.

This area of the state is nothing if not consistent: Obama’s 45 percent share here last year was the highest since (of all people) Michael Dukakis in 1988, but Democratic share has remained generally static.

Erie Media Market
Counties: 3
Share: 3 percent
Avg. of Dem. candidates 1980s: 44 percent
Avg. of Dem. Candidates 2000s: 50 percent

Last year, Obama got 55 percent of the vote in this small market, becoming the first Democrat to win here in more than 30 years. But, it was a natural extension of a pro-Democratic trend line dating back to the 1980s.

How will these trends play out in 2010? To highlight the obvious, any candidate who can strongly appeal to voters in the Philadelphia market would be hard to defeat.

An example is Tom Knox, a Philadelphian with some residual positive ID from his run for mayor in Philadelphia in 2007. He has all-but announced that he is running for governor next year as a Democrat.

Knox is a millionaire, capable of making major media buys in this (very expensive) market. He could turn the area into a formidable home base. The fact that he is not a traditional politician would be a plus in this area of the state.

The writer is a former reporter and columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

May 11, 2009 at 10:18 am

--Tom Ferrick

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