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Gonna re-up this article now for the midnight obsessing about Pennsylvania county level results crowd: Wrote it 16 months which is to say a century ago but holds up pretty well https://www.americancommunities.org/in-pennsylvanias-exurbs-and-urban-suburbs-political-organizing-has-been-intense-since-2016-what-could-it-mean-for-2020/
As a reminder this is what Pennsylvania looks like through @AmCommPro's very helpful categories. Many "rural middle America" counties, lots of ex-industrial/partly recovered "middle suburbs", then exurbs & urban suburbs in the Philly collar & around Pittsburgh
Fully half of the population of PA lives in a Middle Suburb or Rural Middle America county. But also: fully half does not: concentrating instead in Urban Suburbs, Exurbs, College Town, or Big City (=Philadelphia) counties
Obviously, ballots are still being counted, patience is called for, etc etc etc. But poking around the numbers reported, I actually think the big picture of what happened in PA in this election is pretty clear. And (tl;dr) it's not a happy picture for Donald Trump.
Back of envelope big picture: in PA's Rural Middle America counties Biden overperformed Clinton by a point or two: but surging turnout numbers there, + the very low Dem baseline, mean Biden carried a larger vote deficit than Clinton out of those counties in absolute terms
Across PA's "Middle Suburb" counties the picture for Biden is mixed, because... Middle Suburbs are complicated. No really. Like I spend days on end just tweeting about them https://twitter.com/lara_putnam/status/1174489272038170625
Wrote a whole "29 minute read" about political change underway in Pennsylvania's Middle Suburbs actually. (Possibly a better use of your late night screen time than doom scrolling and hitting refresh?) https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/57/rust-belt-in-transition/
Biden outperformed Clinton in Middle Suburb counties between a little & a medium amount. In Washington (maybe the one county in the state where the politics of fracking did drag down) he outperformed Clinton only barely: & increased turnout means he carried a bigger deficit out
In Lackawanna tho, where Clinton lost much ground from 2012 (& before) & barely broke even, Biden benefitted from both swing & turnout & carries 6,000 more votes out than Clinton did https://twitter.com/KeeganGibson/status/1323840666791776258
Likewise in Erie, Biden reversed the Obama-to-Trump swing & turned a 2,000 vote deficit in 2016 into a 4-8000 vote surplus (counting ongoing) today https://twitter.com/tripgabriel/status/1323870684028829696
(Side note: it really wasn't so much an "Obama-Trump" swing there or elsewhere: more like a long term GOP trend in former industrial strongholds, which Obama delayed for a bit and then Donald Trump re-accelerated.)
With both some Election Day votes & some mail-in votes still out in several Middle Suburb counties like Berks, Westmoreland etc the total numbers are still unknown: At a guess could well look like Wolf's 2014-18 small aggregate gain in these counties https://www.americancommunities.org/in-pennsylvanias-exurbs-and-urban-suburbs-political-organizing-has-been-intense-since-2016-what-could-it-mean-for-2020/
But all of this has just been a long lead up to report the essential fact that the numbers that Biden is posting in the last crucial categories of PA counties—the Urban suburbs and Exurbs—are massive. So big that here I am at 4 am rubbing my eyes to make sure I'm doing math right
And before any malicious figures jump to say how could they be so huge isn't something fishy going on, please note that I, a lowly historian wrote at length *16 mos ago* about the intense local organizng driving unprecedented political change exactly here https://www.americancommunities.org/in-pennsylvanias-exurbs-and-urban-suburbs-political-organizing-has-been-intense-since-2016-what-could-it-mean-for-2020/
& I am, frankly, beyond incensed by the fact that nominally quantitative pundits are putting out graphics mutely showing DJT "leading" PA with 70% of ballots counted, when Biden is winning *88%* of mail-in votes in eg Montco & Montco has *124,000* mail-in votes yet to count
Like, did we not learn from the coronavirus pandemic that clear science communication is essential to public health, & poor science communication opens the door to disinformation that itself has the power to change events? & now literally we are reenacting the same mistakes here?
This is no time to be coy or treat the ballot count as a charming plot twist. I would much rather ths be someone else's problem but: if you are a professional with expertise & evidence & know that claims of a Trump victory in PA are just flatly wrong, now is the time to speak up!
Again: In Pennsylvania's Urban Suburb & Exurb counties, turnout was through the roof, the swing from Clinton to Biden was intense, & mail-in ballot uptake was extremely high: driven by the same intensity of political action that swung those counties Left
https://www.americancommunities.org/in-pennsylvanias-exurbs-and-urban-suburbs-political-organizing-has-been-intense-since-2016-what-could-it-mean-for-2020/
https://www.americancommunities.org/in-pennsylvanias-exurbs-and-urban-suburbs-political-organizing-has-been-intense-since-2016-what-could-it-mean-for-2020/
84,000 mail in votes have yet to be counted in Chester, west of Philly, where Biden is winning 80% of mail ballots. He is on path to net 50,000 votes in a county Clinton carried by "only" 25,000.
Meanwhile there are *227,000* mail-in votes not yet counted in Allegheny County, where Biden is currently winning 81% of mail-in ballots.
Remember all those articles you read over the last weeks about women's grassroots groups in PA's comfortable suburbs stumping hard for Biden/Harris + down ballot candidates? *THAT dynamic is why these counties' mail-in votes are so overwhelmingly Biden* https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/us/politics/women-voters-biden-pennsylvania.html
As an aside, how would we ever treat 2020 exit polls as a reflection of the US electorate, when by definition they capture the disproportnatly pro-Trump slice of the 2020 electorate who chose to vote in person in a pandemic amid polarizing attacks on VBM. Am I missing something?
I am not going to re-link here to all the many carefully reported articles over the past month that chronicled the intensive voter outreach underway in battleground states' suburbs. Follow this thread for some
But here's the key point: They Banked Votes https://twitter.com/lara_putnam/status/1316771803335987200
But here's the key point: They Banked Votes https://twitter.com/lara_putnam/status/1316771803335987200
I am trying to remain calm but there is an active misinformation campaign underway to hijack perceptions of legitimacy & derail the vote count in PA. & my husband just wandered into the room having watched network news last night & then slept, asking how Biden came to lose PA
Biden is firmly on track to win PA. Of course for those who care about progressive futures there will be urgent self critique ahead. But NOT YET. Today the rule of law is under extraordinary threat: & every person reading this has the power to help save it https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/upshot/biden-pennsylvania-election-ballots.html
THIS For everyone reading this, incl. me typing it https://twitter.com/BrettSholtis/status/1323994218436661248
For everyone reading this, incl. me typing it https://twitter.com/BrettSholtis/status/1323994218436661248
1) Useful thread :) 2) Actually, turns out the dynamics that led to individuals choosing to vote by mail in advance were everywhere so tied to Democratic networks & outreach that *even in Lancaster county* (Trump+19 in 2016) 73% of mail ins are Biden https://twitter.com/JonathanTamari/status/1323974999821135876
More updates from PA's Middle Suburbs: Biden has taken Northampton, which Trump carried by 5000 in 2016, by 1000 votes https://twitter.com/KeeganGibson/status/1324042567533645826
. @4st8 doesn't lie. Biden's PA margin may be 2-3x that Donald Trump won with in 2016. Is there a way we can pause & gaze straight on at the radical asymmetry of commtment to democracy in the way these two elections played out here & figure out, what now? https://twitter.com/4st8/status/1324116051446140930
Another Middle Suburb heard from: York. Once again we see a small improvement for Biden over Clinton's margin: but increased turnout in the county means the vote deficit generated for Biden was just as large https://twitter.com/Dani_PA/status/1324125249978437632
. Once again we see a small improvement for Biden over Clinton's margin: but increased turnout in the county means the vote deficit generated for Biden was just as large https://twitter.com/Dani_PA/status/1324125249978437632
