Is Pennsylvania drifting towards solid GOP?

[RINO Tom]

The reason why Obama and Hillary won Centre County is because of the influence of Penn State's University Park Campus there.

I can't find exit polls in PA to corroborate this versus W's 53-42% win in that county. I know that nationally, 18-24 split in 2000 but in 2004 they had shifted to Kerry by 9 points. But Bush won the county twice; in 2000, 53-42% and 2004, 51-47%. Admittedly the margin shrunk from 9 to 4 points in 4 years... though Santorum carried it 62-34% in 2000.

Obama swept it by 12 points in 2008, then won it 1 point in 2012, then Hillary won it by 2 points in 2016. For the record the township data does say that in 2016, the state college borough voted by 65-27% Clinton. But nationally, in both 2008 and 2012, young voters swung to the Democrats by wide margins.

Are we sure that this is the reason? This county has undergone definitely a transition from being a reliably Republican county to a Democratic county with about 75,000 votes cast.

Remember that in places with major colleges/universities, the decisive voting bloc is not the college-aged students (who, in many cases, have their votes count toward their hometowns, not their college towns), but the professors, lecturers, and other staff who work in these universities. These people are pretty much all highly educated, and thus tend to vote for left-leaning candidates.

In the case of Centre County, people who live in and around State College tend to vote Democratic, while people in the outer rural areas tend to vote Republican. Aside from Obama and Hillary, this county also voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. Note that Bush won college-educated voters overall in 2000 and 2004, which is probably why he managed to win this county during his elections.

LOL, when will this idea die its overdue death?  Have you ever stopped to consider that 1) fields that literally require a postgraduate education (like education, for example) are already more fertile ground for left-leaning people and 2) in this specific case, those people's livelihoods are literally tied to more government spending and investing in education and they're therefore inclined to support Democratic fiscal policies?  I know you'd all like to believe it is this inherent contact with increased education that makes someone more liberal, but I have to LOL at that idea.

[RINO Tom]

You need someone with issue positions that fit well with the Trump base on economics, FP etc, but delivered by a clean cut middle America suburban politician, with 10 years experience. So much so that even Vosem and RinoTOM find themselves fighting the urge and ultimately succumbing to the urge to vote for them.

Hey man, I have no problem with economic moderation.  It's not the end-all by any means, but look at my economic PM score.  I DO have a problem with empty economic promises, brash and offenseive langugage and adopting the same Robin Hood language toward the successful that we have so often accused Democrats of using to commit (not joking at ALL when I say this:) class warfare.

If the candidate you described emerged, I'm sure both Vosom and I would support him or her.  The problem is that a lot of the current supporters of Trump wouldn't ... their support for him would remain the same if he were the biggest free trader on the planet.

[RINO Tom]

Yes, we all know the logic of Atlas Republicans - Once a state votes Republican even by 0.5%...it is officially safe R for the rest of time.

As opposed to Atlas Democrats suggesting that because college educated Whites revolted against ONE GOP nominee (and still voted for him in plurality!), they are going to become this core Democratic constituency or a sign of an area that might be hospitable to Democrats??