Is Pennsylvania drifting towards solid GOP?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I definitely think a non-evangelical rooted moderate Republican would win Pennsylvania very easily; the trends are tailor made for the moderate Northeastern GOP stripe of Christine Todd Whitman and Arlen Specter, but harder to win outright for the alt-right and the Southern evangelical GOP.

So, if you are talking about a possibly realignment towards a Northern moderate Republican Party, absolutely. But in the current Southern and evangelical dominated, GOP, no.

I think the thing I find most concerning about your analysis is that there only three types of Republicans. Arlen Specter, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

The last hurrah for Specter Republicanism was in 2004. Specter would have gotten destroyed in a GOP primary because most of his base had shifted its registration from GOP to Dem, eviscerating his 51% against Pat Toomey in the 2004 primary. That is 100% the reason why he switched parties in a desperate bid to save himself. He was a dead man walking because of demographics. Specter was also deeply unpopular out in Western PA by the time 2010 rolled around.

The reason that Trump was able to hit gold in PA was because of the fact that PA has normally responded to protectionist messages from the GOP, because of immigration politics (something few on this site understand beyond OMG Racists), Coal, Crime and Terrorism. Bush had all the worst combinations of issue positions to win PA, he was socially conservative enough to piss off the suburbs, and his immigration and trade positions precluded him from getting enough out of the rest of the state. The same goes for McCain and Romney.

That said, while the issue mix is a winner, Trump's mistakes and excesses limited his ability to win certain voters. For instance Toomey won Chester and Bucks (while railing against Philly's sanctuary city policy), yet Trump lost both. At the same time, Toomey's more libertarian economic positions limited his gains in places where Trump ran it up. So both didn't max out their potential in that sense.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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I agree, I was a bit tired when I wrote this. But I think upon review, I’m talking about people who would make it out of the GOP primaries. They’re more likely to be strong anti-immigration types like Donald Trump or Ted Cruz than moderate Republicans.

If you’re thinking Marco Rubio, that’s a possibility for someone who could pick up moderate suburban support and still retain West Pennsylvania’s growing GOP partisans. But increasingly, if you look at the swing of the suburbs, they’re not merely responding to specific partisans. They’re responding to the swing of the national GOP. 20 years ago, when George W. Bush ran for President as a far more moderate Republican on many issues (compassionate conservatism), he did far better than Trump did in the suburbs.

But I’ll get to that in the rest of your post.

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Correct. But Specter’s brand of Republican is actually a winner in the Northeast. It’s the philosophy that has enabled New York and New England Republicans to flourish. The Party’s shift rightwards has eliminated the Republican Party’s federal strength in the Northeast and New England because people like Specter have been forced to switch parties or fail to straddle the primaries and general election.

He won in 2004 against Pat Toomey only because of George W. Bush’s and the national Republicans coming to his aid. So I agree. But I also would speculate that Specter’s brand of conservatism was far more viable in the Northeast than Rick Santorum (who posted smaller margins than Specter in the General) or Pat Toomey (who twice, has posted slender wins).

The Republican Party, however, in Pennsylvania and nationally has changed. The Philadelphia suburban GOP voters are now becoming extinct because they’re switching to the Democrats.

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I agree completely. The protectionist message and immigration hardline played well in speeding up the realignment of West Pennsylvania towards the Republican Party. George W. Bush was a free trader and soft on immigration which angered West Pennsylvania and didn’t pick up enough suburban voters in the Philadelphia area to win (because he was socially conservative).

However, I contend Trump did not create a long lasting formula to win Pennsylvania. He drew from the counties that were losing population the most and pushed the Philadelphia suburban counties to embrace Hillary Clinton. The fastest growing counties, on balance, swung to the Democrats, as I showed.

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Well, that’s an interesting hypothetical. But let’s assume a conventional limited government Republican with protectionist and an immigration hardline (basically Coolidge of 1924, now that I think of it). Such a Republican would probably win Pennsylvania but it wouldn’t be a landslide. For instance, let’s do it this way. Let’s add all the counties Toomey won that Trump didn’t and see what we get. I’ll just recreate the margin.

The President won Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes. I’ll add the counties where Toomey won but he didn’t.

COUNTY | CLINTON MARGIN | TOOMEY MARGIN | Cumulative Swing

Bucks … 2,699 | 18,189 | 65,180 votes
Centre … 1,184 | 1,040 | 67,404 votes  
Chester … 25,568 | 6,110 | 99,082 votes

I won't do a full workup because I think this demonstrates the point well enough.

So, the Republican margin, at their best performances, might have been a 100,000 vote margin out of Pennsylvania for Trump. What’s interesting is that Toomey didn't, for the most part, run too far ahead or behind of Trump. Over 90% of Toomey voters were also Trump voters.

Roughly put, even the best GOP margin out of Pennsylvania might be 100,000 in 2016 and maybe 200-300,000 in 2020 (assuming Lackawanna and Monroe counties flips). In a 6.5 million electorate that votes in 2020, that translates into a 51-47% win roughly. A strong win but doesn't make Pennsylvania a GOP state.

The fundamental problem is that even with someone like Rubio, I don’t see the suburbs flipping GOP strongly. It would require the GOP to adopt a very different platform.

Not sure if you agree or disagree. But that’s my feeling anyway.

Rubio is a horrible fit for PA for all the same reasons as Bush. He is also a neocon and a many of those rural Trump Democrats are either anti-war or at the very least against the kind of foreign policy adventurism that characterized Bush's time. This is at play in the suburbs as well and literally helped to drive those re-registrations that so doomed Specter, up even higher than they otherwise would have been.


The Republicans have to remain pro-life, pro-gun and semi-critical of high levels of legal immigration and sanctuary cities (position on legalization matters less but it certainly takes the headline of the issue).

Beyond that they should go moderately libertarian on social issues, center-right on economics (use infrastructure and energy as proxies achieve results promised through trade saber rattling) and embrace foreign policy restraint. This will put them better in line with younger voters on all these issues and embrace the coming realities as opposed to constantly pretending it is 1985.

That is leagues away from the "moderation" of Arlen Specter. Here we get to a point that is critical, moderate is a catchall phrase that can mean anything or nothing.

I would also point out that PA has had several "moderate" Republicans (of the traditional variety you speak), who were hard line on immigration. New Jersey had a few as well. There are several listed for instance on NumbersUSA's website that are regarded as Rinos overall, but have A and A+ ratings, which is rather extreme considering what they grade on.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

And also shifting the focus from say culture wars to immigration, enables you to grab "traditionalists" who are not motivated by religion be that lapsed Catholics or what not and appeal to them in both an economic and a crime perspective (Sanctuary Cities) and in so doing moderate while still coming off as hardline, just on a different issue.


The problem for the Republicans is that they cannot moderate because they are tied down by the think tank operation that is keeping them stuck in the 1980's. Conservatives also constantly expound their energies rooting out who is and who is not a true conservative and foisting them from among their midst. This is actually not Conservative in nature, in fact it is based in pure radicalism. Constant purification of the movement is actually rather Leninist and beckons to the 1920's Soviet Union.

As long as the GOP is being controlled by such "Leninist Methodology", you will have more Trumps as the GOP (which looks vastly difference from the GOP of 1980's and who is being completely ill served by its leadership who constantly is stuck in the 1980's), strives to toss off their chains.
 
There would not be a Trump without a Ted Cruz and there would not be a Ted Cruz without these outside groups constantly conniving to dispose of anyone who dares question the tax cut theology.

This means the only way to nominate someone more moderate is for them to do the moderation under the guise of nationalism and/or by sounding tougher than the others, ie Trump. This bypasses the issues and accrues support in a psychological manner. It also means, you end up with people like Trump as the nominee, and ultimately, as President.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

And also shifting the focus from say culture wars to immigration, enables you to grab "traditionalists" who are not motivated by religion be that lapsed Catholics or what not and appeal to them in both an economic and a crime perspective (Sanctuary Cities) and in so doing moderate while still coming off as hardline, just on a different issue.


The problem for the Republicans is that they cannot moderate because they are tied down by the think tank operation that is keeping them stuck in the 1980's. Conservatives also constantly expound their energies rooting out who is and who is not a true conservative and foisting them from among their midst. This is actually not Conservative in nature, in fact it is based in pure radicalism. Constant purification of the movement is actually rather Leninist and beckons to the 1920's Soviet Union.

As long as the GOP is being controlled by such "Leninist Methodology", you will have more Trumps as the GOP (which looks vastly difference from the GOP of 1980's and who is being completely ill served by its leadership who constantly is stuck in the 1980's), strives to toss off their chains.
 
There would not be a Trump without a Ted Cruz and there would not be a Ted Cruz without these outside groups constantly conniving to dispose of anyone who dares question the tax cut theology.

This means the only way to nominate someone more moderate is for them to do the moderation under the guise of nationalism and/or by sounding tougher than the others, ie Trump. This bypasses the issues and accrues support in a psychological manner. It also means, you end up with people like Trump as the nominee, and ultimately, as President.

Is this a winning strategy in the long run?

And I agree with your earlier post and much of this one; that made a lot more sense than your initial post.

Issue wise, yes.

In terms of candidate quality, no.

Sooner or later you need quality and/or establishment candidates to embrace more centrist economic stances. These candidates will do better than Trump in the suburbs by far, but will also be more experienced, stable and sane.

The continued blocking of such candidates, will likely lead to more rogue candidates embracing these issues that the establishment is shutting off and breaking through. Leading to more rogue candidates as the nominee and ultimately, as President.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You need someone with issue positions that fit well with the Trump base on economics, FP etc, but delivered by a clean cut middle America suburban politician, with 10 years experience. So much so that even Vosem and RinoTOM find themselves fighting the urge and ultimately succumbing to the urge to vote for them.