Lackawanna vs. Luzerne Counties

[forsythvoter]

Given the similar demographics and geographic proximity of these counties on paper, why is Lackawanna significantly more Democratic? There often is a 20 to 25% higher D margin coming out of Lackawanna. Are there underlying differences in the electorate or is this a case of one county having a significantly stronger local Dem party infrastructure?

[lfromnj]

Wilkes Barre is half the size of Scranton to begin with despite Luzerne being 50% bigger, that should be a big point to start with as Luzerne has way more rural areas and way less of an urban core.

[KaiserDave]

Scranton is much bigger than Wilkes-Barre.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Yes. Also, Scranton is one third of Lackawanna County. Wilkes-Barre is one eighth of Luzerne County.

And Scranton is sizably more Democratic than Wilkes-Barre.

Fun fact: at the 2010 Census Scranton had actually a higher proportion of non-Hispanic White people than Wilkes-Barre.

[Sol]

In addition to what everyone has said, there's a certain recent hard right ethnonationalist tendency in some of southern Luzerne due to the increasing immigrant community in Hazleton and polarization resulting from it.

[lfromnj]

And one last factor for the current shape is Lackawanna has the  well educated Abingtons that actually has a Romney Clinton town !