Can Trump swing Pennsylvania in the general election?

[Ljube]

Hell no. The west and middle may swing slightly Republican, only for there to be a harsh swing to the left in the eastern part of the state and the Philly suburbs.

I can hardly imagine a harsher swing there than what already happened to Romney.

[windjammer]

Nah, he would get destroyed in the suburbs.

[Redban]

Pennsylvania has been trending Republican:

In 2004, it was 4.9% more Democratic than the nation.
In 2008, it was 3.12%.
In 2012, it was 1.48%.

I think Trump has a fair chance. The environment has to be conducive, so he needs a solid 3-4% victory nationwide to take Pennsylvania.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Literally 95% of the Republican vote in Pennsylvania comes from whites already.

If Bush couldn't win it 2004 with 2.8 million votes and 48.4% of the vote, the peak Republican performance in both raw votes and percentage, after 9/11 and tax cuts, then Trump sure as hell isn't winning it by trying to go deeper with Romney's strategy of maxing out a shrinking pool of older white working class voters.

Republicans can get 47% - 48% off the bat, it's surpassing 49% and winning with a plurality or taking a majority outright that they have trouble with. 2.9 million votes and ~51% is basically the Democrats' floor considering inelasticity of the state.

Republicans need to massively improve in Philadephia's and Pittsburgh's suburbs (but especially Philly's), where there are more minorities and college-educated whites. Trump is not the candidate to do that, and his strategy will fall flat just like Romney's.

I'm sure the Democrats would love him to waste resources in Pennsylvania instead of Florida, Virginia, Colorado, and Ohio though.

Virginia and Colorado are probably unwinnable for TRUMP. Therefore, investing in Pennsylvania is not wasting resources.

As I already posted, TRUMP will get new votes from union workers who voted for Obama in 2012. These votes are worth more, as they count twice.
He will also get a large percentage of blacks, also worth two votes each (more than 10%).

The white elite from the suburbs is a problem and here I'm betting they eventually fall in line and vote TRUMP too.

There is literally no evidence that any of this is actually going to happen though.

Union members were 1,208,245 (5,753,546 votes * 21% of exit poll saying they were) and 57% (688,699) voted for Obama and 42% (507,463) voted for Romney.

Obama's margin of victory was 310,000 votes. Even if they had tied 50-50 amongst union members, that would only have cut Obama's margin by 85,000 votes. Still wins by 150,000 votes (2.9 million to 2.75 million, still less than Bush in 2004).

And blacks, you're just pulling out of thin air. But to entertain your fantasy, 13% of votes said they were black (748,000). 93% voted for Obama (696,000) and 5% for Romney (37,000).

Let's say those percentages were 84% (628,000, an awful showing for a Democrat) and 14% for Republicans (112,000).

Add those numbers to the 50-50 union showing and the Democrat still wins by 30,000 votes.

Trump has no path in Pennsylvania. The votes aren't there.

30000 votes is an awful small number of votes to claim this.
You're forgetting new voters who never voted and TRUMP's gonna turn them out (25% of his share I think in New Hampshire, which is some 2% overall).

You're forgetting that many of the tactics that Republicans use to turn out their base often do an even better job of turning out the Democratic base.

You're forgetting that tying union votes and 15% of the black vote is never going to happen for Republicans.

You're using the same flawed "primary turnout = election turnout" argument that Sanders supporters do for their little revolution.

You had no evidence for your claims in the 2012 election and you ended up totally wrong, and you still have none for this election except empty platitudes.

[Ebsy]

Pennsylvania has been trending Republican:

In 2004, it was 4.9% more Democratic than the nation.
In 2008, it was 3.12%.
In 2012, it was 1.48%.

I think Trump has a fair chance. The environment has to be conducive, so he needs a solid 3-4% victory nationwide to take Pennsylvania.

It is not so much that Pennsylvania is trending Republican, it is that the nation is trending Democratic. The past four elections have had remarkably static results in Pennsylvania, with the Democrat always edging out the Republican.

[ElectionsGuy]

Hell no. The west and middle may swing slightly Republican, only for there to be a harsh swing to the left in the eastern part of the state and the Philly suburbs.

I can hardly imagine a harsher swing there than what already happened to Romney.

What harsh swing? Romney did almost as good as Bush in 2004, he won Chester and almost won Bucks.  Trump would lose those for certain.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

People think Trump's only support is rural working class people, but that is not true in the northeast. In the northeast, he has incredible suburban appeal. I don't know why people fail to grasp that his home suburbs behave incredibly differently than other suburbs across the country. It's a pretty common phenomenon.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Pennsylvania has been trending Republican:

In 2004, it was 4.9% more Democratic than the nation.
In 2008, it was 3.12%.
In 2012, it was 1.48%.

I think Trump has a fair chance. The environment has to be conducive, so he needs a solid 3-4% victory nationwide to take Pennsylvania.

It is not so much that Pennsylvania is trending Republican, it is that the nation is trending Democratic. The past four elections have had remarkably static results in Pennsylvania, with the Democrat always edging out the Republican.

^^^

Romney gained 25,000 votes over McCain, while Obama 286,000 from 2008. Yet despite that massive drop in votes, Obama still outperformed Kerry in 2004 by over 50,000 votes.

Pennsylvania is an incredibly inelastic state. Even in Reagan's landslide victory in 1984, he won only 53% of the vote here.

People think Trump's only support is rural working class people, but that is not true in the northeast. In the northeast, he has incredible suburban appeal. I don't know why people fail to grasp that his home suburbs behave incredibly differently than other suburbs across the country. It's a pretty common phenomenon.

Nope.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

People think Trump's only support is rural working class people, but that is not true in the northeast. In the northeast, he has incredible suburban appeal. I don't know why people fail to grasp that his home suburbs behave incredibly differently than other suburbs across the country. It's a pretty common phenomenon.

Nope.

Look at the Trump primary support map: he's killing it in SE PA and Long Island for example. Stronger in central Jersey than anywhere down in S. Jersey.

And then compare to Chicago where he is at zero. There is a home effect. Whether you believe it translates to the GE or not is up to some interpretation, but Trump won't be losing these voters like he might in other places. It will be more interesting if he can add others from these areas into the mix. I won't make any calls now because I view him as the GE underdog, but you can't discount the possibility.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Minorities in Pennsylvania will allow Clinton to narrowly edge out Trump in PA like PA always does.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

People think Trump's only support is rural working class people, but that is not true in the northeast. In the northeast, he has incredible suburban appeal. I don't know why people fail to grasp that his home suburbs behave incredibly differently than other suburbs across the country. It's a pretty common phenomenon.

Nope.

Look at the Trump primary support map: he's killing it in SE PA and Long Island for example. Stronger in central Jersey than anywhere down in S. Jersey.

And then compare to Chicago where he is at zero. There is a home effect. Whether you believe it translates to the GE or not is up to some interpretation, but Trump won't be losing these voters like he might in other places. It will be more interesting if he can add others from these areas into the mix. I won't make any calls now because I view him as the GE underdog, but you can't discount the possibility.

He has suburban appeal in the GOP primaries, but the number of GOP primary and general election voters is completely dwarfed by Democratic voters.

Romney had strong suburban support in New Hampshire, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, and Illinois during the primaries; fat load of good that did for him in November of 2012.

[F_S_USATN]

I'm reading Kasich and Trump didnt make it on the ballot for PA's primary.
All they needed was 2k signatures.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

People think Trump's only support is rural working class people, but that is not true in the northeast. In the northeast, he has incredible suburban appeal. I don't know why people fail to grasp that his home suburbs behave incredibly differently than other suburbs across the country. It's a pretty common phenomenon.

Nope.

Look at the Trump primary support map: he's killing it in SE PA and Long Island for example. Stronger in central Jersey than anywhere down in S. Jersey.

And then compare to Chicago where he is at zero. There is a home effect. Whether you believe it translates to the GE or not is up to some interpretation, but Trump won't be losing these voters like he might in other places. It will be more interesting if he can add others from these areas into the mix. I won't make any calls now because I view him as the GE underdog, but you can't discount the possibility.

He has suburban appeal in the GOP primaries, but the number of GOP primary and general election voters is completely dwarfed by Democratic voters.

Romney had strong suburban support in New Hampshire, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, and Illinois during the primaries; fat load of good that did for him in November of 2012.

The difference seems to be that Trump more unique form of appeal in that he's drawing more people into the GOP primary as opposed to same old, same old. But we'll see. At this point, it's hard to argue more than from the perspective of a deeply held intuition of what I see.

Reminder: the little polling we do have from PPP had Trump up 2 with more 14% of Romney voters undecided as opposed to 9% of Obama voters. And he pulled a ton of Obama voters as it was (10%). I guess I'm in that group.

[Old Man Willow]

Trump will do well in the suburbs. Do you people seriously think security isn't a big issue for suburban families?

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Trump will do well in the suburbs. Do you people seriously think security isn't a big issue for suburban families?

Doesn't mean he'll win the state because of that.

[Figueira]

It would probably be his best swing state compared to Romney, but I don't think he'd win it.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Nate Silver doesnt give GOP much of a chance. His best chance  is NH or NV against Bernie Sanders. Sanders poor standing with Blacks in Philly will allow him to max out gains in Pittsburgh suburb.  But, with Scalia nomination,  Blacks will be happy in Dtw also, to vote against Trump.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Yes. White working class and union members are sick of Clintonian LIES.

PA is Trump country

This may be how it shakes out.  Of course, Trump could be caught in the anti-union, anti-worker BS of the Club For Growth GOP set that love Sen. Pat Toomey, who's up for re-election.  But Trump is, in many ways, the Republican candidate who can POSSIBLY swing just enough of those kinds of votes to expand the map.

[EliteLX]

Literally 95% of the Republican vote in Pennsylvania comes from whites already.

If Bush couldn't win it 2004 with 2.8 million votes and 48.4% of the vote, the peak Republican performance in both raw votes and percentage, after 9/11 and tax cuts, then Trump sure as hell isn't winning it by trying to go deeper with Romney's strategy of maxing out a shrinking pool of older white working class voters.

Republicans can get 47% - 48% off the bat, it's surpassing 49% and winning with a plurality or taking a majority outright that they have trouble with. 2.9 million votes and ~51% is basically the Democrats' floor considering inelasticity of the state.

Republicans need to massively improve in Philadephia's and Pittsburgh's suburbs (but especially Philly's), where there are more minorities and college-educated whites. Trump is not the candidate to do that, and his strategy will fall flat just like Romney's.

I'm sure the Democrats would love him to waste resources in Pennsylvania instead of Florida, Virginia, Colorado, and Ohio though.

Virginia and Colorado are probably unwinnable for TRUMP. Therefore, investing in Pennsylvania is not wasting resources.

As I already posted, TRUMP will get new votes from union workers who voted for Obama in 2012. These votes are worth more, as they count twice.
He will also get a large percentage of blacks, also worth two votes each (more than 10%).

The white elite from the suburbs is a problem and here I'm betting they eventually fall in line and vote TRUMP too.

There is literally no evidence that any of this is actually going to happen though.

Union members were 1,208,245 (5,753,546 votes * 21% of exit poll saying they were) and 57% (688,699) voted for Obama and 42% (507,463) voted for Romney.

Obama's margin of victory was 310,000 votes. Even if they had tied 50-50 amongst union members, that would only have cut Obama's margin by 85,000 votes. Still wins by 150,000 votes (2.9 million to 2.75 million, still less than Bush in 2004).

And blacks, you're just pulling out of thin air. But to entertain your fantasy, 13% of votes said they were black (748,000). 93% voted for Obama (696,000) and 5% for Romney (37,000).

Let's say those percentages were 84% (628,000, an awful showing for a Democrat) and 14% for Republicans (112,000).

Add those numbers to the 50-50 union showing and the Democrat still wins by 30,000 votes.

Trump has no path in Pennsylvania. The votes aren't there.

30000 votes is an awful small number of votes to claim this.
You're forgetting new voters who never voted and TRUMP's gonna turn them out (25% of his share I think in New Hampshire, which is some 2% overall).

You're forgetting that many of the tactics that Republicans use to turn out their base often do an even better job of turning out the Democratic base.

You're forgetting that tying union votes and 15% of the black vote is never going to happen for Republicans.

You're using the same flawed "primary turnout = election turnout" argument that Sanders supporters do for their little revolution.

You had no evidence for your claims in the 2012 election and you ended up totally wrong, and you still have none for this election except empty platitudes.

[indysaff]

If he wants to pour money into it ala McCain '08, then I say go for it.

[Ljube]

Clarko, look, I'll let you crunch the numbers since you are obviously good at it, just keep an open mind.
Elasticity of a state and previous results matter only if the candidates are conventional. TRUMP is not conventional.

Union workers - TRUMP will win them over with his protectionist policies. How many? Could it be that he gets 20% of previous Dem votes here?

Blacks - They like TRUMP more than other GOP candidates. They are anti-immigration. He will get 10% of blacks for sure, but can he go higher? Up to 15%?

White suburban - How much is TRUMP going to lose here? 5% of the Romney vote?

Never voted before white supremacists/bigots/uneducated - Can he get some 30000 additional votes here? Maybe more?

Please analyze these options and give us the results.
Thanks!

EDIT: In fact, please try to find a plausible combination that will swing Pennsylvania for TRUMP. Or any combination and we will judge if it is plausible later.

[MT Treasurer]

No Republican can win against either Democrat in Pennsylvania. The Republican candidate whether it's Trump or anyone else should focus on the top four swing states Colorado, Florida, Ohio and Virginia. They may need all four. The only other possible swing state is Iowa.
(Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Wisconsin clearly lean Dem.)

lol k. VA is not more winnable for Republicans than PA.

[Adam the Gr8]

If it were him against Bernie maybe. But not Hillary, so no.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Ljube: here are the racial crosstabs of the PPP poll that had Trump leading -

Clinton-TRUMP-Unsure
Base 43-45-13
White 38-50-12
Black 72-10-18
Other 52-40-8

I truly believe he has strong appeal in Bucks and Delaware which you can debate (at worst, stronger than Romney), and he will outperform significantly in Philadelphia. 13-15% of blacks is far from out of the question, and with the Street's campaigning for him, who knows? He just needs to make it the focus of his campaign, which I expect him to do since he accepted an invitation to speak here.

To be perfectly transparent - Christie got 14% of blacks and Carson got 12%, but that's all irrelevant now. Rubio got 10% vs. Sanders, and Trump got 20% against Sanders.

Romney got only 6% according to exit polls.

[P123]

Sadly, I don't think so. He has a chance, but it is extremely unlikely do to political polarization. If Trump (or any Republican for that matter) wins the map will look like 2004.