Will Brian Fitzpatrick ever lose re-election?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Honestly, more likely a primary than a GE.

One thing Fritzpatrick is really good about is staying on the dl. If he got more media, Trumpists would be unhappy with him and could successfully out primary him but that just never happens, and even in a narrowly divided House like this one, he's still been pretty quiet. One could argue part of this is a failure on Dem's part to really go after him or at least force him to answer difficult questions.

PA-01 despite being suburban has had a lot of internal counteracting shifts; I don't think the seat will ever become "too blue" for any Republican to win, though it could get more difficult.

[ProgressiveModerate]

PA-01 despite being suburban has had a lot of internal counteracting shifts; I don't think the seat will ever become "too blue" for any Republican to win, though it could get more difficult.

This is an excellent point to note. Bucks is fundamentally different from, say, Chester County. I don't want to oversimplify it (and someone with more knowledge should correct me), but Bucks seems to be more WWC ethnic Catholics, while Chester is more your typical upper-crust WASPy suburban county.

Yes, that's def fair to say. The outer parts of Chester County have also been growing and becomign more suburban in a way outer Bucks hasn't. Also, Chester has higher ed attainment.

[ProgressiveModerate]

PA-01 despite being suburban has had a lot of internal counteracting shifts; I don't think the seat will ever become "too blue" for any Republican to win, though it could get more difficult.

This is an excellent point to note. Bucks is fundamentally different from, say, Chester County. I don't want to oversimplify it (and someone with more knowledge should correct me), but Bucks seems to be more WWC ethnic Catholics, while Chester is more your typical upper-crust WASPy suburban county.

Yes, that's def fair to say. The outer parts of Chester County have also been growing and becomign more suburban in a way outer Bucks hasn't. Also, Chester has higher ed attainment.

Also while we're on the topic of Pennsylvania political geography, Erie County just seems incredibly inelastic and seems to have a shockingly low Democratic ceiling.

Specifically, I'm thinking about PA-GOV and PA-SEN, 2006. In PA-GOV Casey beat Santorum by more than 17 points. In PA-SEN Gov. Ed Rendell beat Lynn Swann and cleared 60%. Yet neither Casey nor Rendell managed to break the 60% threshold in Erie, despite Casey managing it in a county like Greene and Rendell managing it in Chester (arguably the antithesis of a county like Greene politically speaking).

I suppose it goes back to Erie being a perfect bellwether of the state but nonetheless, I'd expect at least one of the two to have broken 60% in Erie (Rendell managed to do so statewide, so Erie actually voted to the right of the state).

And also re: PA-GOV wtf happened in the Philly suburbs? Could anyone with deeper knowledge about PA politics explain this? Rendell broke 60% in Chester and he managed over SEVENTY percent of the vote in Bucks (which, like Erie, seems to be fairly inelastic - though unlike Erie, Bucks is more inelastic in presidential elections than downballot).

I think it could be because Erie is pretty polarized between the urban part and rural part (for a midwestern state in that region). Even in landslide elections, both sides still have a base of support within the County if that makes sense.

As for 2006 Gov, I'm not completely sure, but even back in 2006 regional politics used to matter a lot more, and Rendell was a generally well liked mayor of Philly who received positive media - that media prolly carried over into Bucks and Chester too. Philly suburbs were never really deep red either; they've always had a more liberal streak like much of the northeast.