PA Statewide Elections 2019

[Pheurton Skeurto]

https://twitter.com/4st8/status/1192145491720593409?s=20

Based SEPA.

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://twitter.com/4st8/status/1192145491720593409?s=20

IIRC, Geoffrey Skelley said yesterday on twitter that the suburbs are becoming a no-fly zone for Republicans nationwide.

[Orser67]

IIRC, Geoffrey Skelley said yesterday on twitter that the suburbs are becoming a no-fly zone for Republicans nationwide.

Yeah, the other major thing is that Republicans controlled 4 out of 4 suburban Philly congressional districts prior to 2018 (Costello, Fitzpatrick, Dent, and Meehan), and now control just 1 of 4 (Fitzpatrick). They also lost Dent's Lehigh Valley-based district.

At the same time:

https://twitter.com/4st8/status/1192150368081399811

[Landslide Lyndon]

Wasn't Armstrong county always a Republican stronghold?

[Ebsy]

Wasn't Armstrong county always a Republican stronghold?

Yeah, but some reason Democrats had 2 of the 3 county commission seats prior to last night. No idea how that happened!

Also, the margin in Washington County was very narrow (52-48) so things are not looking quite so dire there.

[Not Me, Us]

Disappointing but unsurprising county-wide results in Lancaster, but there is is some god news for my local Dems. Both GOP incumbents on the Manheim Township board of commissioners lost reelection, going from a 3-2 GOP majority to a 4-1 Democratic one.

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://twitter.com/4st8/status/1192145491720593409?s=20

If you're gonna include Lehigh and Northampton into SEPA, not including Berks makes zero sense.

[Annatar]

PA Superior Court race, looks like 1 republican and 1 Democrat will be elected. Dem vote total was 2.436 million for all and candidates and GOP was 2.374 million, overall 4.813 million votes cast so fairly high turnout for an off year, dems got 50.6% to GOP 49.3%.

[Tartarus Sauce]

So, it feels like there is mixed results in the suburbs? The Delco and Chester council news is great, but the statewide races were very wonky.

These aren't *directly* comparable, but in Chester, Casey won by 20% last year, while Dems only 7.6% this year (not even Clinton's margin), while in Delco, Clinton won by 22% and Casey by *31%* yet Dems only added up to +10% in the statewide result. I know the suburbs are more moderate sometimes downballot, but this seems like a serious and odd downward trend, especially when the council seats all flipped blue.

Meanwhile, WTF happened in Dauphin? Clinton +3 and Casey +11 to Reps adding up to +7 there yesterday.

In the Trump flip areas, Lackawanna (Clinton +3.5, Casey +23.2), went to the Dems by 9%, while Erie (Trump +1.6, Casey +18.4) went to the Dems by 2%.

Even my home county, Montgomery disappointed me a bit. We went 22% by Dems, but that's only on par with Clinton (+21) and way less than Casey (+32).

Philly still has 100 precincts left to report and Northampton 150, plus a few other outstanding ones (~350 in total), so hoping that Green-Hawkins can somehow pull out a win for 2nd place.

I know these statewide races can not be reflective of what's happening, but it's still a bit dissapointing. Was hoping for a way better result from Dems, but turnout in my county, Montco, for example, was only 37%, compared to 67% last year.

Probably has to do in large part to turnout.  I can almost guarantee you that I was in the vast minority of people in my age bracket of 18-25 that even bothered to vote.  In contrast, the 65+ crowd definitely kept up the trend of getting out and voting, rain or shine.  When I voted near Uni City, I was definitely the youngest person in the room by at least forty years.  

Yeah, not sure what you're bummed about, wbrocks, off-year electorates for local races are very different from statewide election demographic profiles. There's a reason the Republicans managed to keep a lock on all those local offices long after the areas started voting Democrat at the top of the ticket during normal election years, older conservative voters were the most invested in keeping the archaic GOP machine in place. A similar dynamic played out in Northern Virginia until 2017 where the GOP largely dominated local and assembly seats throughout the Obama years even after they were losing those same districts by double digits during presidential election years.

The fact that Republicans lost control of all those local offices in a low-turnout election dominated by senior citizen voters is not good news for them going forward.

[Annatar]

But lower turnout is not uniformly good for Republicans though as its more educated voters who turn out disproportionately when turnout is lower and Republicans in PA do better with less educated voters offsetting the gains they might make with younger voters not turning out as much.

[Tartarus Sauce]

But lower turnout is not uniformly good for Republicans though as its more educated voters who turn out disproportionately when turnout is lower and Republicans in PA do better with less educated voters offsetting the gains they might make with younger voters not turning out as much.

Sure, but I'm just pointing out for him that he doesn't really have any reason to be bummed by margins. The electorate demographics are like apples to oranges compared to normal elections.

[Annatar]

I agree on that, also the results in these municipal elections don't really mean much, if PA had some statewide races R vs D we might have gotten a better idea of things.

[wbrocks67]

Lancaster Newspapers reporting 27.17% turnout (88,369 votes cast out of 325,296 registered voters) in Lancaster County.

Looks like about ~65,000 votes were cast in 2015. Turnout was 21.06% according to LNP.

A 6% increase in a municipal election in deep red Lancaster County spells (mostly) good for Trump in 2020.

If this is accurate, looks like interesting turnout figures for the more Trump-y districts. Lancaster, a red district, only had 27% turnout, while Montco, a blue suburb, had 37% turnout. Looks like Dems were a bit more energized, at least in the suburbs.

[wbrocks67]

But lower turnout is not uniformly good for Republicans though as its more educated voters who turn out disproportionately when turnout is lower and Republicans in PA do better with less educated voters offsetting the gains they might make with younger voters not turning out as much.

Sure, but I'm just pointing out for him that he doesn't really have any reason to be bummed by margins. The electorate demographics are like apples to oranges compared to normal elections.

You're right. And I mean, I'm more than happy considering there is headlines like the one below. I was just hoping the statewide races would do a bit better for Dems. A +2 margin is still good, but the margins in places like Dauphin, Erie, Chester, Delco for the statewide election were kind of meh, but again, it's not necessarily representative.

And you're right... in a lower turnout election where older, more Rep voters are expected to come out, and Dems still win by +2 statewide, that's not bad at all.

https://twitter.com/politico/status/1192381331470245888

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

But lower turnout is not uniformly good for Republicans though as its more educated voters who turn out disproportionately when turnout is lower and Republicans in PA do better with less educated voters offsetting the gains they might make with younger voters not turning out as much.

Sure, but I'm just pointing out for him that he doesn't really have any reason to be bummed by margins. The electorate demographics are like apples to oranges compared to normal elections.

You're right. And I mean, I'm more than happy considering there is headlines like the one below. I was just hoping the statewide races would do a bit better for Dems. A +2 margin is still good, but the margins in places like Dauphin, Erie, Chester, Delco for the statewide election were kind of meh, but again, it's not necessarily representative.

And you're right... in a lower turnout election where older, more Rep voters are expected to come out, and Dems still win by +2 statewide, that's not bad at all.

https://twitter.com/politico/status/1192381331470245888

I get your disappointment and this is a totally personal anecdote, but as I've said before, I saw at least five people with walkers at the polls when I went to vote.  I'm going to safely say that EVERYBODY in line was old enough to be grandmother/grandfather.  Doesn't help that I look like I'm fourteen haha but I digress.  

Anyway, it could've been the time of day (was early before my classes), but this wasn't a "sexy" election.  Student groups weren't organizing here on campus to "GET OUT THE VOTE FOR SUPERIOR COURT!".  

While I think the gains (or, at least, the continued trends) in the suburbs should be encouraging for PA Dems, nobody -- Republican, Democrat, or otherwise -- should be using the elections here as ironclad evidence for how their party will do in 2020. 

[DINGO Joe]

PA Superior Court race, looks like 1 republican and 1 Democrat will be elected. Dem vote total was 2.436 million for all and candidates and GOP was 2.374 million, overall 4.813 million votes cast so fairly high turnout for an off year, dems got 50.6% to GOP 49.3%.

You may already know this, but everyone gets to vote for two judges, so for overall turnout, you have to halve that number-2.4 million