Note that Casey defeated Santorum in this district by 10 points in 2006. The district was R+3 relative to statewide if I'm calculating that right (Santorum got 3 percentage points better here than statewide). Santorum, of course, was from the area while Casey was from the opposite part of the state.
This gives me some hope that if the maps have reset somewhat from the anti-Clinton/Obama map we had in '16, there's some latent openness to voting Democratic here.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DSifF_MW0Ac0sJQ.png
But that was back when this region was a democratic stronghold. Clinton won the three counties south of Allegheny by strong margins, and he was merely the most recent Dem to gain this region. By Gore and Kerry's time this region was already leaving the Democratic party, though it would only be in 2004 when a D lost one of the three counties. If there was any latent Dem support here, it was in 2010/12 when Casey and Sestack won one of the three counties.
If you are a Democrat hoping for a win here (very unlikely) you should place your bets on the three favorable fundamentals:
-Open seats swing wildly with the enviornment
-Special election swing even more wildly with the environment
-Open seats opened by sexual or political misconduct the to swing even more wildly
The twin open seats in NY in 2011 offer a good picture of this phenomenon: are hardcore D seat in NYC backs team R, and the most R seat in the state elects a democratic representative.
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