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In Pa., shifting electorate and 'a historic election'

Jim Donnelly is a registered Republican who is disgusted. His lifelong party, he believes, has done little for anyone but the wealthy, the well-connected, and its own leaders.

Donald Trump supporters cheer him in Harrisburg last week. Trump is riding a wave of GOP disgruntlement among the blue-collar whites of suburban Philadelphia, while among Democrats, Bernie Sanders is winning young supporters.
Donald Trump supporters cheer him in Harrisburg last week. Trump is riding a wave of GOP disgruntlement among the blue-collar whites of suburban Philadelphia, while among Democrats, Bernie Sanders is winning young supporters.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

Jim Donnelly is a registered Republican who is disgusted. His lifelong party, he believes, has done little for anyone but the wealthy, the well-connected, and its own leaders.

"I'm a strong Republican and this is the worst I've ever seen it," said Donnelly, 73, a retired factory production manager who lives in Lansdale. "In Washington, D.C., and in Harrisburg, the Republicans are only looking out for themselves. I don't see any Republican I like except for Donald Trump - because he says it the way it is."

Donnelly has a lot of company in Pennsylvania.

For decades, the state has had a fairly consistent, predictably low-key GOP identity. But this year's presidential race is upending long-standing patterns, exposing a changing electorate demanding change.

Voter-registration data and polls suggest a wave of GOP disgruntlement among the blue-collar whites of the Philadelphia suburbs, places that not too long ago were populated by reliable so-called Country Club Republicans, the type who might normally gravitate toward Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Fewer college degrees and more economic woes instead have made such places fertile ground for the message, and the candidacy, of Trump.

Places like blue-collar Springfield, Delaware County, where slightly more than half of all residents lack a college degree and Republicans are 60 percent of registered voters. Or Warminster, Bucks County, where 63 percent have a high school diploma or some college, and nearly half, 45 percent, are registered Republican.

On the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders has similarly stoked leftist voter anger with his challenge to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. His middle-class-is-suffering message is playing well among the state's many millennials under 35.

But pollsters say the GOP battle in Pennsylvania has no parallel in recent memory.

"We are in unprecedented waters," said Mark Harris, a Republican strategist and cofounder of Cold Spark Media in Pittsburgh who is studying the GOP electorate in support of Sen. Pat Toomey's reelection campaign. "It's certainly a historic election on multiple levels."

He and other analysts predict high turnout Tuesday in the Republican and Democratic races, even as polls show strong leads for Trump and Clinton.

Clinton, 68, is expected to do very well among voters older than 55 - a bloc that makes up more than 40 percent of all Pennsylvania Democrats and that recent polls show overwhelmingly supports her.

The first female front-runner in a presidential race, Clinton also is doing well with the 57 percent of Democrats who are women, said pollster Jefrey Pollock, whose Global Strategy Group is working on the pro-Clinton Priorities USA Super PAC.

To some extent, Clinton's challenge from Sanders is reminiscent of 2008, when Barack Obama billed himself as that year's change agent and won the nomination.

But the three-way GOP race among Trump, Kasich, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is something else entirely: the first deeply contested Pennsylvania primary for Republicans since 1976.

Its voters belong to a statewide party that remains more than 95 percent white and is half Protestant. But, increasingly, they are unhappy with the conservative status quo.

"Some of them are frustrated as hell," Pollock said, "and frustrated with the world."

Trump's "sweet spot" has become Republicans between 35 and 60 years old - "middle-aged folks who are still in the workforce, struggling," said Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.

And poll numbers suggest it's a wide pool of people with less-than-optimal financial prospects.

About 65 percent of GOP voters statewide lack a college degree. Of those with no more than a high school education, fully half say they are for Trump, according to a mid-April Muhlenberg College/Morning Call survey.

They have gravitated toward the billionaire businessman as he has bashed trade and tax policies as harmful to workers and as he, like Cruz, has stirred anti-immigrant sentiment.

Trump's message has gained momentum in recent weeks. A poll released Thursday by Franklin and Marshall College showed that Kasich, who had led among Republicans in the four counties surrounding Philadelphia, has lost traction, his support falling to 36 percent in the last month. Trump's, meanwhile, has surged to 31 percent from the mid-20s.

"How large a majority Trump gets in the state will largely depend on how much he eats into Kasich's natural constituency down there," said poll director and political analyst G. Terry Madonna.

While much of the attention this spring has focused on the more competitive three-man race, the winner still faces an uphill battle here in the fall.

Statewide, Pennsylvania remains blue, with registered Democrats holding a commanding edge over registered Republicans, 4.1 million to 3.1 million. Nine out of 10 Democrats are white, according to a Franklin and Marshall poll. About a quarter are Protestant, a third Catholic.

African Americans account for a little more than half of Democratic voters in Philadelphia, a bloc expected to support Clinton after backing Obama in 2008, Madonna said.

The wild card in that primary contest, however, could be the large group of younger Democratic voters on the rolls this year.

More than one million of the state's Democrats are under 35. Half live in four of the most populous counties: Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, and Pittsburgh's Allegheny County.

But because they have not been voters for long, pollsters say, it is hard to study or predict their impact on Tuesday.

"I do wonder if you're going to see this huge millennial vote that you've never seen in Pennsylvania," said J.J. Balaban, a longtime Democratic strategist with the Campaign Group in Philadelphia.

Sixty-three percent of this group supported Sanders in the Franklin and Marshall poll released Thursday. He has gained traction with young Democrats, analysts say, by pounding Clinton's ties to Wall Street and an economy he says is "rigged" against the middle class.

Unlike older voters, who studies have shown have fared better through the economic turbulence of the last decade, younger and middle-aged voters have suffered more acutely. Sanders has zeroed in on that same malaise by targeting Democrat-leaning, economically battered former industrial cities such as Reading and Scranton, where he held rallies Thursday.

"These are communities that have really suffered," Balaban said. "He's trying to make the case, 'I've been on your side on these trade deals that have hurt your community.' "

Tuesday's turnout is not expected to break the Democratic primary record of 55.63 percent, set in 2008. But observers expect it to easily reach the 40s.

Republican turnout, on the other hand, could be extraordinary, reaching 40 percent or higher - well beyond the 20 percent range in which it has lagged for two decades, Harris said. The prospect of a Republican convention battle - where Pennsylvania's delegates could play a key role - only raises the stakes here.

"Republican voters," he said "are energized."

mpanaritis@phillynews.com

610-313-8117@Panaritism