Inside Pennsylvania's Vote
A look at vote totals by county in this year's presidential race shows some interesting stuff.
Inside Pennsylvania's Vote
John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
(A brief discussion twixt Baer & Baer's editor, a.k.a. BE)
JB: Boss, let me take you one more time to the well.
BE: Huh?
JB: A deep look inside Pennsylvania's vote for president.
BE: Old news. Last week. Move on.
JB: No, no. Trust me. This is interesting.
BE: ZZZZZZ.
JB: For example, you know the narrative that this race was split between the haves and the have-nots?
BE: My eyelids feel heavy.
JB: Well, when you look at counties where the median household income (which is $50,398 in Pennnsylvania, according to U.S. Census data) is above the state average, guess what you find?
BE: Bunch of boring rich counties?
JB: You find that among counties with the highest household incomes Romney won 10 and Obama won 7. Romney took Chester (the highest at $84,741; and he took it very narrowly, by just one-half of one percent), Adams, Berks, Butler, Cumberland, Lancaster, Lebanon, Pike and York; Obama took Bucks, Dauphin, Delco, Lehigh, Montco, Monroe and Northampton.
BE: So the have/have-not thing doesn't really hold.
JB: And when you look at the poorest counties, guess what you find?
BE: A similar split?
JB: Not exactly. Obama took only one of the state's 10 poorest counties, Philadelphia. Romney won nine: Fayette (the poorest), Forest (the second poorest; Philly's third), Clearfield, Jefferson, Mifflin, Northumberland, Potter, Sullivan and Venango.
BE: Rural folk. Makes sense.
JB: And you know what the most interesting county result was?
BE: I imagine you're about to tell me.
JB: Centre County (just click on the map), home of Penn State, split 49-49 with Romney winning by 20 votes out of about 68,000 cast.
BE: We Are!...Conflicted!
JB: Overall, Obama carried just 12 counties and Romney carried 55; and Obama won the state by a margin of 5.2 percent, which is exactly half the 10.4 percent he won by in 2008.
BE: Can i go now?
JB: Yes. And have a fact-filled day.
Better to do an analysis based on education and job. As with the rest of the country, professionals overwhelmingly voted for Obama (despite the Medical Profession's opposition to the ACA) as did people with postgraduate degrees. These people tend to congregate in the cities, as do single people (women in particular) and minorites, who overwhelmingly voted for Obama. The tyical Romney voter came from white, married, college graduates over 50 living in exurban or rural areas who own guns and are social conservaties. The closer you get to a city and have to live with people who are not like you, the vote becomes overwhelmingly in favor of Obama. Anger and alienation are not enough to build a winning coalition, but that is all the Republicans have at this point.— Palestra Jon
@Palestra - Your comments have been a breath of fresh air over the last few weeks. Thank you.— wokmaster- Oh the facts..these things that haunt Republicans...— mick-of-the-moment
- Oh the facts..these things that haunt Republicans...— mick-of-the-moment
- Perhaps if there was a way to determine the work ethic split- wait the map would probably look pretty much the way it does, Philly goes with the candidate of give-me-free-stuff-that I-don't-need-to-earn-on-my-own.— Jethro66
- You obviously didn't read the article. Or you have a reading comprehension disability. It states that 9 out of the 10 poorest counties voted for Romney, including the 2 poorer than Philadelphia. — wokmaster
- @Jethro66--Yeah, all those moochers in Montgomery county, probably the wealthiest in the state, where the Repubs. have not won since Bush the elder. Obama won twice because he was the far better candidate from the better party. Look at where Repubs. do well: the old Confederacy, upper Mid-west and compare the levels of education, scientific research, entrepreneurship (Bill Gates/Steve Jobs from Mississippi?) and it is obvious: brains, culture, entrepreneurship, social mobility reside to a much higher degree in blue states. Religious fanaticism, racism, homophobia, stunted education and social stratification reside, to an alarming degree, in red states.— mick-of-the-moment
- Mick...the irony of all of this is that the Grand Old Party, the Republican Party from which Lincoln destroyed slavery and enacted the Civil Rights Acts guaranteeing equal voting rights (there's a current movie about it for those who don't know), Teddy Roosevelt, the "Trust Buster" who broke up Carnegie Steel, Standard Oil and the JP Morgan financial empire, and even Richard Nixon, who singed the Clean Air Act now is the Party of Jefferson Davis. It opposes voting rights and tries to restrict them wherever possible, it is a rubber stamp for huge business interests and denies scientific proof of environmental degradation. Even Ronald Reagan, who enacted the largest peacetime tax increase in American history to reverse the huge deficits created by his initial tax cut, and who favored many liberal social positions, would be deemed a tax-raising, terrorist-negotiating, gay-loving, amnesty- granting, big spender by today's extreme GOP. And is it any wonder why the Republicans cannot forge a winning majority?— Palestra Jon
John is the author of the book "On The Front Lines of Pennsylvania Politics: Twenty-Five Years of Keystone Reporting" (The History Press, 2012). Reach John at baerj@phillynews.com.
