PA Election Results: 2004 vs. 2008

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by Pilot1

People in the metro areas are more liberal whether they are affluent of not. Cities are democratic and its been bleeding out the the suburbs for years. People in rural areas are more self reliant and want less government controlling their lives.

See the results I just compiled on the NEPA forum for Luzerne County for great evidence of this. All but ONE of the urban boroughs, cities, and townships in the core of the Wyoming Valley favored Obama, and the same can be said for McCain in the rural or upscale suburban areas.

[boardmanite]

I found it interesting that while Obama made significant inroads in Eastern and even Central PA (capturing Chester, Berks, Dauphin and Centre counties), he lost 3 counties outside Pittsburgh that went for Kerry. Any thoughts???

[Duderino]

Originally Posted by boardmanite

I found it interesting that while Obama made significant inroads in Eastern and even Central PA (capturing Chester, Berks, Dauphin and Centre counties), he lost 3 counties outside Pittsburgh that went for Kerry. Any thoughts???

Good point -- that's something I noticed right away as well. However, if you look at vote shares, Obama only underperformed by a few points in those Western PA counties compared to Kerry. For example, Beaver County went to Kerry by a 51-49% margin, whereas McCain took it this time by 51-48%. Nothing too drastic.

On the other hand, the gains that Obama made in Eastern PA are pretty impressive. I had a hunch he'd take the Philly suburbs and the Lehigh Valley by a greater margin than Kerry, but I was just unaware by how much more. I really think the McCain campaign claiming that PA was "in play" was just a matter of rhetoric and trickery. The Democrats had a 1 million + margin in voter registration going into election day, and by that measure alone it really should not be surprising that Obama won the state by double-digits. As a result -- coupled with the pending electoral college redistribution that will likely cause PA to lose 2 electoral votes -- the Keystone State appears to have relinquished its "swing state" status in future elections.

[Awesomo.2000]

Murtha was right about SW Pa. The counties in the Pittsburgh Metro all went red except Allegheny.

These are strict democratic counties also. I guarantee you if Obama was white, and named John Jones, and spoke the SAME message these counties would be blue in 2008.

[Unstable]

I think those counties all flipped because of Obama's comments about guns and religion. And then Rendell and Murtha ran around calling their own constituents racists.

As for the self-reliance of rural areas, that's a myth. An ideological reality, but not in fact true. If you look at federal and state taxes and expenditures, money tends to flow FROM urban areas INTO rural areas. That only makes sense - this is a nation built on the wealth-generating power of cities.

[SewickleyPA]

Originally Posted by Awesomo.2000

Murtha was right about SW Pa. The counties in the Pittsburgh Metro all went red except Allegheny.

These are strict democratic counties also. I guarantee you if Obama was white, and named John Jones, and spoke the SAME message these counties would be blue in 2008.

Come on man, don't jump the gun. While this could have been an issue for a couple of people, what about the backlash against Murtha for calling Western PA racist? Considering these 3 counties are all swing counties, they only moved a couple of points toward the republican this time around so I don't think it is fair to label everyone in those areas as racist.

[SewickleyPA]

Originally Posted by Unstable

I think those counties all flipped because of Obama's comments about guns and religion. And then Rendell and Murtha ran around calling their own constituents racists.

This is true, some of my relatives live in Beaver County and I can tell you they were less than enthused about the whole Murtha thing. Besides, most western Pa democrats are know for being much more conservative than most democrats around the country, combine that with the older population in those counties and you can see why they might be a little resistant to change.

[BirdistheWord]

Originally Posted by Pilot1

People in the metro areas are more liberal whether they are affluent of not. Cities are democratic and its been bleeding out the the suburbs for years. People in rural areas are more self reliant and want less government controlling their lives.

The only thing rural areas are reliant on is the big cities to pay for everything they have.


And they don't want government controlling their lives? Could have fooled me, considering how many want the government to tell us who can and who can't marry and what a woman can do with a fetus.