pbrower2a
Atlas Star
Posts: 26,914
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« on: December 10, 2018, 12:57:33 PM » |
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« edited: January 30, 2019, 10:38:44 AM by pbrower2a »
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If there is any pattern, it is with one Party creating disillusionment with its agenda and creating an opening for the other (2016), and the winning Party in that election (2016) creating much disillusionment with it in the next election and creating openings for the other Party (2018). This is more like a "Plexiglass" effect in baseball statistics in which a pitcher who has an unusually-high ERA gets shut down and effectively benched, gets more rest, and the next year goes back to his old norm (think of Anibal Sanchez with the Detroit Tigers in 2017 and with the Atlanta Braves in 2018) in a different environment. The Tigers couldn't wait to get him off their roster, and the Braves got to the playoffs while the Tigers went 64-98. Or think of the slugger who goes from .280 with 38 home runs and 92 RBI to .245 with 14 home runs and 67 RBI who gets traded away for next to nothing and comes back hitting .278 with 22 home runs and 87 RBI.
That is how Nate Silver, who went from strictly dealing in baseball stats went to discussing politics. He made the transition very well because of some of the similarities between models of sporting events and elections.
It is easy to characterize the settlement patterns of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania used to be an R-leaning state because the Democrats did not have a strong machine in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh as they did in such places as Boston, Chicago, New York, Memphis, or New Orleans. Pennsylvania agriculture did reasonably well where it was (southeastern Pennsylvania is practically a farmer's paradise with adequate rainfall, a long and reliable growing season, and good terrain -- and the rest of the state is horrible for farming), so the rural distress did not foster 'prairie populism'. Pennsylvania voted for Hoover in 1932, and any state that gives its vote to someone who wins 59 electoral votes is obviously very partisan or giving a protest vote.
Because Pennsylvania is urban, its suburbs could harbor plenty of 'Rockefeller Republicans', people liberal on social issues but conservative on defense and economics. It could elect people like the late Arlen Specter to the Senate as a Republican. The D-R division used to be slight, but that is over.
So Pennsylvania is
(1) Philadelphia (enough said about its current politics)
(2) Philadelphia suburbs (which have been drifting from R to D like suburbs of all othe rNorthern states except Indiana)
(3) Greater Pittsburgh (but a no-growth area -- think of Cleveland)
(4) northeastern Pennsylvania (Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Allentown -- in decline and economic distress, and willing to listen to any demagogue who promises a return to the Good Old Days)
(5) south-central Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Lancaster, York, Reading -- much like western Michigan as a no-growth area)
(6) Erie (small and no growth)
-- and --
(7) everything else. Appalachia, which has tended to go to the Right with contempt for anything modern, exotic, or liberal. I have seen Appalachian Pennsylvania described as if "Pennsyltucky" or "Pennsylbama". It is the Backwoods, hostile to any people who might be seen in any way exotic in appearance of values.
Appalachia south of the New York-Pennsylvania state line is very right-wing and Republican. It used to be decidedly Democratic, which might explain how Carter won the state in 1976. But whites in the Mountain South (and central Pennsylvania is in the Mountain South politically and culturally even if it is one of the chilliest areas in America climatically) were receptive to the Moral Majority and the politics that went with it. It made a sharp turn to the Right and went for Ronald Reagan, carrying an otherwise-close state in Presidential elections to the GOP in 1980, 1984, and 1988. Democrats from Clinton to Obama got some edge in Pennsylvania as Bob Dole, Dubya, McCain, and Romney were less effective in appealing to Pennsylvania voters, but Trump sang just the right tune for Appalachia with his economic populism and self-righteous expressions of ethnic and religious bigotry. Will that work in 2020? Just look at how well the Republicans did in Pennsylvania in 2018!
Approval polls suggest that Donald Trump is highly unpopular in Pennsylvania, with disapproval numbers in the high 50s and low 60s before the 2018 election.
A trend or a rebound? It depends on whether the President has the skill set of Reagan or Obama on the one side (their skill sets are much the same) or Donald Trump. I see Trump as a catastrophic failure as President, but that is my opinion. In view of the statewide elections for high state offices and the blowout win for the Democratic Senator , and the dominance in Democratic voting for House seats (Pennsylvania is heavily gerrymandered, so the House delegation does not reflect the statewide vote), I have cause to see Trump losing Pennsylvania decisively in 2020.
Effective politicians push a trend. Ineffective ones get a rebound. People usually can't admit that their vote for an incumbent was a mistake -- unless their views change (which explains part of how Carter did so badly in 1980 -- the rise of the Religious Right while he was President) or the economy goes into the toilet (Hoover going from the most promising President in American history to one of the biggest goats). With Trump I see plenty of stuff going wrong, and I cannot say what will explain his nearly-certain failure in 2020. Sure, I despised him in 2016 -- in ways in which I did not despise John McCain, Mitt Romney, or the elder Bush -- so I can't hide my bias. But I can as easily hit Trump from the Right as from the Left. Say what you want about Reagan, but at least nobody had any question of his patriotism!
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