Fun Fact: PA is Just as Much of a Swing State as OH, IA, or CO

[Nyvin]

And more of a true swing state than FL or NC.  But, Atlas seems to forget that because of some mythological 'blue wall'.

What exactly are you going off of?

[Nyvin]

If you follow the nominal votes in PA,  it would seem it's trended Democratic over the last 20 years.

[Nyvin]

And more of a true swing state than FL or NC.  But, Atlas seems to forget that because of some mythological 'blue wall'.

No.

If Pennsylvania was a "true swing state," George W. Bush would have carried it while he won a Republican pickup, by 2.46 percentage points, of the U.S. Popular Vote (with his "re-election") in 2004.

Good to know New Mexico is a swing state and Virginia and North Carolina are still safe red states.

Seriously, do you honestly think the political landscape has not changed in 12 years? Pennsylvania trended Republican in both elections since 2004, despite both nominees writing the state off as a blue state until a few weeks before the election. Polls show reason to believe an early Republican investment in the state would reap rewards.

The demographics in Pennsylvania don't really favor Republicans.   They don't favor either party that much, since the state is barely growing.

The main change is the population growth in the east and the decline in the west.    That does actually favor the Democrats.

[Nyvin]

We've seen Pennsylvania's PVI trend rightward before, it really doesn't mean as much as people here are making it out to be.



In fact PA's PVI has shifted rightward three times over the last 50 years and it hasn't crossed the threshold once.

It seems like the main reason it goes right is that the NATION's vote shifts to the left faster than PA does.     It would explain why the nominal vote totals in PA have favored Democrats in the last few elections (2004 vs 2012) despite the PVI moving away from the Dems.

[Nyvin]

We've seen Pennsylvania's PVI trend rightward before, it really doesn't mean as much as people here are making it out to be.



In fact PA's PVI has shifted rightward three times over the last 50 years and it hasn't crossed the threshold once.

It seems like the main reason it goes right is that the NATION's vote shifts to the left faster than PA does.    It would explain why the nominal vote totals in PA have favored Democrats in the last few elections (2004 vs 2012) despite the PVI moving away from the Dems.

What exactly does the bolded language mean please?  It makes no sense to me. In 2000 and 2004 the nation shifted rightward, and PA less so. In 2008 the nation sifted leftward and PA less so. In 2012, the nation shifted rightward, and PA more so. I fail to see any pattern of elasticity or whatever your point is. More to the point, is whether or not the trend to the Pubs in the last two elections is a blip or representative of a longer term trend. Charts won't help you with that.

Look...the only way it's possible to show Pennsylvania is "trending Republican" at all is if you compare the state's percentages to the nation's percentages.    Looking at the total votes in the state it would seem that the Democrat's position has strengthened.

2000:   2,485,967 Gore
         2,281,127  Bush

2004:  2,938,095    Kerry
        2,793,847   Bush

2008:   3,276,363   Obama
         2,655,885   McCain

2012:  2,990,274   Obama
         2,680,434   Romney

If you discount the 2008 outlier,  the vote totals barely budge between 2004 and 2012 in favor of Democrats.      And percentage wise Obama did better than Kerry or Gore in 2012 (and obviously 2008).    Kerry and Gore never passed 51% of the PA vote,  Obama did both times.  The Republicans haven't been able to repeat their 2004 performance since.

The ONLY WAY POSSIBLE to show any kind of Republican Trend therefore is to compare it to the Nation's vote.    The nation obviously voted more Democratic in 2008-2012 than in 2000-2004.    So in other words the Trend is basically showing the Nation moving in the direction of the Democrats while Pennsylvania does too...but at a much slower pace.    Giving the illusion of a Republican Trend.

When you're getting LESS VOTES eight years later that is anything BUT a Republican trend.

[Nyvin]

OK. So based on four data points, and getting rid of one of the four that proves inconvenient, so we label that a noisome "outlier," and toss it in the dust pin, we find that PA does not swing overall at all much, be damned what the nation is doing, because it is a law of Newtonian physics, that in PA, while internally, things are swinging all over the place, the net effect must be close to a wash, sort of like the speed a light is constant, or where there is action in one place in PA, there will be nearly an equal opposite reaction elsewhere. Some might call that "data mining."

Again, I don't mean to single you out as a particularly egregious perp in this regard. Date mining is the secular religion of loads and loads of posters around here, and I am using this topic as an excuse to explore and expose this little phenomenon that so many of us have made into an almost obsessive hobby. Awareness of ignorance is the first step to knowledge. It's tough, and hard to do, but the first step is to say, hey, I have no idea really what will happen next. There just isn't any model of any statistical significance, with a reasonable explanation to back it up, that allows for any such extrapolations, that is other than GIGO.

So let's both just say it together, both of us, in unison - we just don't know what will happen next in PA. It's all speculation.   There, we did it. Don't you feel better now?

Selectively using PVI and ignoring all other data points to show a Republican Trend is MUCH MUCH more of an example of data mining than anything I posted.