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A good chunk of the Philly metro is over the river in South Jersey and a bit in Delaware. It dilutes the political oomph of Philadelphia. If you annexed those pieces, Pennsylvania would be deep blue.
That's true. Unfortunately only 4,100,000 of the Philly metro is in Pennsylvania. 1.3 is located in New Jersey and about 750,000 is in Delaware, with a small part of that in Maryland.
The vast majority of states have an equivalent of "Pennsyltucky," it's just that in Pennsylvania urban/metropolitan versus rural areas are remarkably evenly matched in political influence, and one of only a handful of states where you don't have either lopsided (large) metro or rural populations. Although there are new signs that metropolitan/urban portion of the pie is beginning to edge out rural PA.
Long story short, in the case of Illinois, Chicagoland outmatches the very "red" downstate hinterlands.
The vast majority of states have an equivalent of "Pennsyltucky," it's just that in Pennsylvania urban/metropolitan versus rural areas are remarkably evenly matched in political influence, and one of only a handful of states where you don't have either lopsided (large) metro or rural populations. Although there are new signs that metropolitan/urban portion of the pie is beginning to edge out rural PA.
Long story short, in the case of Illinois, Chicagoland outmatches the very "red" downstate hinterlands.
Agreed. I see PA edging bluer as the years go on, already beginning to happen, especially in the Philly burbs.
And as others mentioned, if the NJ and DE portions of the Philadelphia metro were in PA, that combined with the rest of Southeastern PA would be enough to swing the state even more blue.
The Pennsyltucky comment is so annoying to me. As you said, every state has their fair share of that term, yet PA gets called out for it. Also, I have traveled extensively though rural North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida. Rural PA has NOTHING on them. The built environment of rural PA is more-so tired than redneck. The natural landscape is stunning though.
The vast majority of states have an equivalent of "Pennsyltucky," it's just that in Pennsylvania urban/metropolitan versus rural areas are remarkably evenly matched in political influence, and one of only a handful of states where you don't have either lopsided (large) metro or rural populations. Although there are new signs that metropolitan/urban portion of the pie is beginning to edge out rural PA.
Long story short, in the case of Illinois, Chicagoland outmatches the very "red" downstate hinterlands.
PA does have more of its population in those "red" hinterlands than IL, but in both states those areas are generally sparsely populated. The small and medium-sized cities (Harrisburg, Peoria, Allentown, Rockford etc.) seem to trend more purple; the college towns (State College, Champaign) are generally solidly blue (although Champaign seems to trend more blue than Centre county). Then there's the Metro East of St. Louis in Illinois, which tends to trend blue.
So, are you saying that Pennsyltucky is more influential than Illitucky?
Like the fella above said, Illinois was built for and around Chicago, and Chicago became very, very big. Philly became big as well. It's just that Philly being on the state line, it's democratic Metro population in New Jersey votes in New Jersey and not in Pennsylvania. Northern Delaware is also very democratic because it's in close proximity to Philadelphia. I am positive that if Philly's entire metro population was in PA, it and Pittsburgh's combined metros of 8.5 million would turn the state blue at every level of government.
The Pennsyltucky description(despite this region having a bunch of small urban cities) had a hand in the 2016 election, is a reason why 2/3 of state gov't is red and why there's disdain for Philly by much of the state. Keep it up if you don't want people on your side.
Illinois outside of Chicago is still more union friendly than PA.
There were new census estimates released recently and in Pennsylvania, Luzerne County (the Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton area) has recorded the highest rate of Hispanic population growth in the nation this decade. This concentration went up from 6.7% in 2010 to 13.8% in 2019.
While Luzerne voted strongly for Trump in 2016, as the newcomers join the electorate and older (predominantly non-Hispanic white) populations decline, this area is likely to have less Republican-oriented demographics in the future - at least with the current party configurations. Several other counties in eastern Pennsylvania are also trending quickly towards more diverse populations.
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