Why did Allegheny County, PA swung so hard to the D in 2020?

[iceman]

The county was an anomaly in the area, most of the counties in that region either moved to the right or was stagnant in movement. Lorain and Mahoning counties in Ohio flipped and even Cuyahoga swung to the right, Erie county, PA only slightly moved to the left, but what happened in Allegheny?

[Alcibiades]

Pittsburgh has managed to recover from deindustrialisation much more than those other cities you mention: it is a bigger, more dynamic urban center, with some affluent suburbs.

Edit: Also has a number of universities.

[seeking mystical annihilation]

Allegheny County, unlike much of the heavily WWC areas in that neck of the woods, still has some fairly bougie suburbs that probably moved hard to the left as they did across the country. This was the demographic that gave Conor Lamb his Congressional victories, even under the older boundaries. Neighboring Butler County, which also has a fair amount of those areas, moved well towards the Dems as well.

[iceman]

Pittsburgh has managed to recover from deindustrialisation much more than those other cities you mention: it is a bigger, more dynamic urban center, with some affluent suburbs.

but it's still a county that is losing population right?

[Alcibiades]

Pittsburgh has managed to recover from deindustrialisation much more than those other cities you mention: it is a bigger, more dynamic urban center, with some affluent suburbs.

but it's still a county that is losing population right?

Yes, although the population decline, unlike Mahoning, has been negligible in the last decade and the rate of decline is slowing. I wouldn’t be surprised if it grows in the 2020s.

[AGA]

The counties that surround it swung D too.

[It's Time.]

Because White cities swung hard D in 2020.

[DINGO Joe]

Because it's educated

[nclib]

IIRC, the population loss has been from WWC people, making the county more educated and therefore more left.

[H. Ross Peron]

One factor is Allegheny is much whiter compared to most metropolitan counties. White college educated voters continued to shift left and WWC voters swung somewhat to the left compared to 2016 as well, both of which helped Democrats in Allegheny County.

[Tartarus Sauce]

There are a lot of tony, educated suburbs in Allegheny County, that, while still following national trends in shifting leftward, resisted abandoning their Republican roots pre-Trump. 2020 was the year that a whole swath of them finally broke away, and the ones that already made the switch in 2016 deepened their newly blue hue this past election.

[Red Wall]

The Pittsburgh suburbs are located inside the county and they swung Biden, which broke the static pattern of the county of always finding a way to end up as 57-42 D

[mileslunn]

Pittsburgh has diversified and has a large number of universities.  If you look at percentage with college degrees, its much higher than many other industrial cities that swung in Trump's favor.  Also if you look at Borough and township results, you did see a swing in WWC ones towards Trump but stalled in 2020 while in the upper middle class college educated ones, which there are many of, they swing towards Biden as you saw across the country.  Northern part of Allegheny County is more like Chester County than Beaver, Washington, or Westmoreland counties in demographics.

[neostassenite31]

The absolute swing is 4 percentage points, so it's not massive

[Interlocutor]

I wish someone made a "Why did _____ Swing _? Megathread" the day after the Election

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

Hillary was a bad fit for office in 2016

[pbrower2a]

The absolute swing is 4 percentage points, so it's not massive

A 4% swing in Allegheny County might not in itself be enough to swing Pennsylvania, but it was close to being enough.

[Fascism Must Be Defeated]

Allegheny County, unlike much of the heavily WWC areas in that neck of the woods, still has some fairly bougie suburbs that probably moved hard to the left as they did across the country. This was the demographic that gave Conor Lamb his Congressional victories, even under the older boundaries. Neighboring Butler County, which also has a fair amount of those areas, moved well towards the Dems as well.

This is absolutely correct--you can also see this on the swing map. Ironically and extremely depressingly, a lot of the old steel towns along the rivers in Allegheny County swung to Trump, even as the rich suburbs continued to move Biden.

[Fascism Must Be Defeated]

Also worth noting that there are verrry few Latinos in Allegheny County.

[lfromnj]

Allegheny County, unlike much of the heavily WWC areas in that neck of the woods, still has some fairly bougie suburbs that probably moved hard to the left as they did across the country. This was the demographic that gave Conor Lamb his Congressional victories, even under the older boundaries. Neighboring Butler County, which also has a fair amount of those areas, moved well towards the Dems as well.

This is absolutely correct--you can also see this on the swing map. Ironically and extremely depressingly, a lot of the old steel towns along the rivers in Allegheny County swung to Trump, even as the rich suburbs continued to move Biden.

Yeah most towns in Alleghany did move left but the very poorest towns like the Rocks moved rightwards.

[Alcibiades]

The absolute swing is 4 percentage points, so it's not massive

Yes, but Biden got the biggest D % margin since LBJ.

Allegheny County, unlike much of the heavily WWC areas in that neck of the woods, still has some fairly bougie suburbs that probably moved hard to the left as they did across the country. This was the demographic that gave Conor Lamb his Congressional victories, even under the older boundaries. Neighboring Butler County, which also has a fair amount of those areas, moved well towards the Dems as well.

This is absolutely correct--you can also see this on the swing map. Ironically and extremely depressingly, a lot of the old steel towns along the rivers in Allegheny County swung to Trump, even as the rich suburbs continued to move Biden.

Yeah most towns in Alleghany did move left but the very poorest towns like the Rocks moved rightwards.

What were the results in the Rocks (the Allegheny County election results page is basically impossible to navigate because they list all 1300 precinct results along with the boroughs and it takes ages to load)? I know it still voted pretty comfortably for Clinton in 2016, by 35 points.  Interestingly, it’s got a lot more black and a lot less white in recent years; it was 83% white and 14% black in 2000, now it’s 56% white and 33% black. I presume that’s because most of the population loss is being driven by white people moving out.

[Smash255]

The county was an anomaly in the area, most of the counties in that region either moved to the right or was stagnant in movement. Lorain and Mahoning counties in Ohio flipped and even Cuyahoga swung to the right, Erie county, PA only slightly moved to the left, but what happened in Allegheny?

As was mentioned Allegheny while often thought as a WWC county and has a decent WWC population, it is better educated a more white collar than it is thought of.  41.6% Bachelor's Degree, Cuyahoga is 32.5%, Erie is 27.9%, Lorain 24.9%, Mahoning 24.2%

[Fascism Must Be Defeated]

Finally, one other thing worth noting--Dems collapsed here earlier than other similar areas, like the Youngstown area. Look at the 2008 and 2012 swing maps for a good example.

[Chips]

It's urban.

[Alben Barkley]

SCRANTON JOE

(Yes, I’m aware that Allegheny County isn’t near Scranton, but Joe’s PA background did seem to give him some small boost across the state, relative to states like Ohio where there was basically no shift from 2016.)