As Goes Philly, So Goes the Guv
As Goes Philly, So Goes the Guv
An urban demographer lays out how the city'southward votes in the upcoming race for Governor can sway the ballot—assuming, of course, the city votes
Jul. 19, 2018
Midterm elections are less than three months abroad and while national eyes will be focused on control of Congress, Pennsylvania'south voters volition decide in November whether to reelect Democratic incumbents Governor Tom Wolf and Senator Bob Casey, or support swing to Republican Scott Wagner.
Inside swing-state Pennsylvania, Philadelphia plays the role of Autonomous breastwork. Elections ofttimes boil down to two questions: (one) how do Pittsburgh and Philadelphia's suburbs swing between parties, and (2) can Philadelphia's turnout overcome those swings?
I've downloaded data from the amazing Open Elections Projection to look ahead to November.
Philadelphia and Pennsylvania's turnout
Turnout in PA Governor races is typically 2/3 of the turnout in Presidential elections. Just under 6 million votes are typically cast for President, while under four million are cast for Governor. This means that there is significant room for growth in 2022 turnout with an energized electorate.
The closest proxy for 2022 is probably 2006: in that year, an unpopular Republican President and an incumbent Democratic Governor led to a sweeping victory across the state, with Ed Rendell winning reelection past 19.8 percent points. Coincidentally, Bob Casey was running then as at present, and this wave carried him to a 17.4 point win over incumbent Rick Santorum.
That election besides saw the highest statewide turnout for a Governor's race, with four.ane million Pennsylvanians voting. Autonomous voters in 2022 appear to exist even more motivated than 12 years agone; if turnout closes even a fraction of the 2 meg vote gap between Presidential and Gubernatorial races, we could expect record vote counts.
Despite its reputation equally a swing state, Pennsylvania entered 2022 with the Democrat having won vi of the prior vii President & Governor races. Of course, swinginess reasserted itself in 2016, every bit Trump carried the land overall by 44 m votes. Interestingly, Rendell's big Democratic win in 2006 came even while the Republican count of votes held steady: he received 55,000 more than votes than in 2002, and that leap was responsible for the surging victory.
Within the state, Philadelphia serves both the roles of casting the nearly votes and beingness the virtually Democratic county. In 2014, Philadelphia supported Wolf with 88 percentage of the vote. He carried the state with 55 percent.
Together, Philadelphia and its 4-county suburbs–Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery–constitute 31 percent of the state'southward population and 33 percent of its votes. Philadelphians vote disproportionately more in Presidential elections, making upward 11.8 percent of the electorate on boilerplate, as opposed to x.8 percent of the electorate in Governor's races. That difference may seem modest, but combined with the fact that Philadelphia often votes 36 pct points more Democratic than the rest of the state, this single swing can change statewide results past 0.36 percentage points. For a sense of size, Donald Trump won the state past 1.ii per centum points.
Philadelphia and its suburbs regularly vote more Democratic than the remainder of the country. Across the years, however, there are some subtle trends. Philadelphia's suburbs announced to be the most susceptible to waves: the swing from Democrat to Republican betwixt 2006 and 2010 was much more dramatic than in Philadelphia or the rest of the country. In 2016, those aforementioned suburbs exemplified the anti-Trump motion, and really voted more for Clinton than they had for Obama in 2012. Both Philadelphia and the residual of PA did the opposite.
Turnout vs. Persuasion in Pennsylvania
In a previous post, I decomposed swings in votes into changes in turnout and changes in party selection . Let's apply that same calculation to state, county by county.
A recap: the calculation decomposes each canton's effect on the statewide election results into the effect of its turnout swings and of swings in its party preference. If a county has a score of 0.two in Party Variability, that ways that its typical swing in party preference changes the statewide election outcomes past 0.2 percentage points. If a county has strong boilerplate turnout simply varies in which party information technology votes for, it will have a high Party Variability score. If a canton always votes for one party, and its turnout varies from election to election, it will accept a high Turnout Variability score. Counties that always accept low turnout or don't vote strongly for a given party will accept low scores, as volition counties that never vary.
In near every county, party variability dominates turnout variability. The single, huge exception is Philadelphia. Philadelphia'southward score of 0.37 means that its changes in turnout between Governor and Presidential races tin can modify the statewide ballot past 0.74 percentage points, as it goes from i deviation below its mean to one difference above. All other counties about entirely affect the state by swings in party preference. (Annotation: This calculation focuses on county-level results, and I don't accept data on individual voter turnout. Some of the Party Variability is virtually certainly within-county turnout differentials: if within a canton the Republicans are more than likely to vote than the Democrats in a given ballot, that will announced in this adding equally a alter in that canton's party preference. As such, this calculation nigh certainly overstates Party Variability and understates Turnout Variability. Nonetheless, Philadelphia'south larger score is telling.) Party Variability impacts the entire state, and the map of the Variability impact largely looks similar the map of voters.
By comparison, only Philadelphia has a consistent-enough party preference and plenty turnout variability for its turnout to have a large effect.
Jonathan Tannen is a lifelong West Philadelphian, and an urban demographer with a PhD in Urban Policy. This piece originally ran on sixtysixwards.com.
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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/as-goes-philly-so-goes-the-guv/
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