Pennsylvania being a blue state

[Politics4us]

Why has the GOP not done much to get PA back to being a Republican state? We hear about how important Ohio is, and how the GOP can't lose TX, but couldn't the GOP get back PA if they put more effort into it? It's not that blue, and the minority population isn't great enough for the Republicans to not win.

[jmyrlefuller]

Why has the GOP not done much to get PA back to being a Republican state? We hear about how important Ohio is, and how the GOP can't lose TX, but couldn't the GOP get back PA if they put more effort into it? It's not that blue, and the minority population isn't great enough for the Republicans to not win.

A couple of reasons, both of which have are somewhat related.

The main reason is population decline. A lot of the population of Pennsylvania, especially in the deep red areas (as Carville once quipped, “Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Alabama in-between”), has seen a HUGE exodus of people over the years, probably the worst of any area of the Rust Belt. Not all of that is policy; it's simply the end of a resource boom. Now, part of that's being reversed because of the Marcellus shale, but it'll probably require a few more decades of consistent development to reverse the trends.

The second is that because so many conservatives have left (or not had kids), the state has shifted quite a bit to the left. They haven't won the state in a Presidential election since Bush 41, I believe. Romney and Ryan put a big effort in the end in PA and still lost. Basically, the state's starting to look like the imperial states of New York and California, where the big cities dominate politics over much wider areas than where their majorities reside.

Winning back PA would require a HUGE uphill climb and a perfect combination of events that are somewhat out of the control of politicians.

[massadvj]

Conservatives can win in Pennsylvania, but they had better remain true or the rural protestant evangelicals here will hang them out to dry in a heartbeat.

The state is actually more conservative than it looks from the outside.  Toomey won rather handily here, and so did Corbett, once.  The state legislature is conservative.  The congressional delegation is 13-5 Republican, most of them conservatives.  Democrats who win here generally have to position themselves as moderates.

I have noticed that whenever you have two well-funded candidates in a statewide race, the Democrat seems to win.  But Democrats find it harder to find the money to wage a statewide election here.  It happened that Wolf was an extremely well-funded businessman, so he was able to match Corbett dollar for dollar, and he ran a much smarter campaign.

Additionally, everything jmy says is true.     

[katzenjammer]

Why has the GOP not done much to get PA back to being a Republican state? We hear about how important Ohio is, and how the GOP can't lose TX, but couldn't the GOP get back PA if they put more effort into it? It's not that blue, and the minority population isn't great enough for the Republicans to not win.

Philadelphia.  That's your answer.  Seriously, the vote concentration in Philly and its suburbs dominates the rest of the state in almost ever election.  Most times, the votes from Pittsburgh & Harrisburg are just icing on the cake.

What this points out for Presidential elections, is the problem that we see in the maps for Illinois & many other states (even the whole US maps).  All of those Counties/Districts colored in Red, yet the full slate of electors going to the Blue candidate.  That is the huge problem of the "winner take all" method of allocating a state's electors.

I believe only two states do it differently, Maine and (I think) Nebraska.  In those states, the winner of the popular vote in each Congressional District gets the elector.  And I think, not 100% sure, that the overall state popular vote winner gets an extra elector or two.

Just think about that when you see those maps......   winner take all basically disenfranchises voters in many, many districts throughout the country in every Presidential election.  Candidate Blue gets every single electoral vote (winner take all) in many states in which they have actually won a small percentage of the Districts.  Illinois is a great example, as is Pennsylvania.