READ FULL STORY HEREWith many of the world’s leaders meeting this week in Pittsburgh for the G20 conference it has been a rather slow few days for pollsters. Perhaps that will give us time to do a quick reflection on Pennsylvania’s unique history in Presidential elections as consistently one of the key battleground states through the years.
Pennsylvania has been viewed as an essential piece to the electoral puzzle of nearly every Presidential candidate over the past several decades. Its significant electoral clout along with the competitive nature of its politics places it high upon the mantle of most sought after states. Perhaps only Florida and Ohio have garnered more attention in recent years from national political campaigns attracted to the rich diversity of voter ideologies in both the primary and general election seasons.
The Keystone State was always a significant electoral victory for any candidate but it wasn’t always a competitive one. Admitted as the second state after ratifying the Constitution in December of 1787, Pennsylvania has participated in all 56 general elections dating back to 1789. Here is a history in brief of PA’s role in Presidential politics through the years.
1789-1824: Colonial Era to Jackson & the party split
In 1789 American War hero George Washington ran unopposed and swept all ten states en route to becoming the first American President. Pennsylvania’s electoral clout was sizable in the first ever election containing ten-electoral votes, tied with Massachusetts and Virginia for most. Less than 1.3% of an estimated 2.4-million eligible/free voters cast their votes in the election. John Adams was selected as Vice President getting about half the 69-total electoral voters from a scattered field of nearly a dozen candidates who ran for the position.
Nearly four years later the immensely popular Washington again ran unopposed and his Vice President Adams was also reelected. Pennsylvania dropped to the third largest state on the electoral map with fifteen-votes but it still composed over 11% of the country now fifteen states strong. In 1796 Pennsylvanians chose Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson for President but found themselves on the losing end to Federalist and sitting VP John Adams. The election was a close contest with Adams securing the victory by way of a narrow 71-68 electoral vote margin.
Four years later Pennsylvania was a focal point for the first time in Presidential politics. Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams but due to a split in the Democratic-Republican Party Aaron Burr was left with as many electoral votes (73) as the would-be President Jefferson. In the general election the Keystone State almost evenly split its fifteen electors between Jefferson and Adams but helped Jefferson eventually win the Presidency by voting for him 9-4 over Burr in a special election of state delegations.
Over the next several elections a series of landslide victories in which Pennsylvania sided with the winner reduced the state’s importance on the national scale. Still its size and clout could not be ignored as PA was twenty-electors strong in both the 1804 and 1808 elections, second most in the union. Again from 1812-1820 Pennsylvania with 25-electors had the second most in America, exceeded only by the state of New York’s 29.
In 1824 the infamous “corrupt bargain” election helped elect John Quincy Adams over the more popular Andrew Jackson. In an odd twist four members of the same party (Democratic-Republican) ran for President with Jackson finishing as the clear winner in terms of both popular and electoral votes but not securing the majority needed to take office automatically. Pennsylvania came out strong for "Old Hickory" in both the general and special House elections but Adams ultimately secured the victory.
1828-1856: Formation of modern parties & the election of James Buchanan
Angered by his controversial loss in the 1824 election Andrew Jackson helped engineer a split in the Democratic-Republican Party. By the 1828 election he would help engineer the newly formed Democrats’ rise to power over Quincy Adams and the National Republican Party. Pennsylvania cast all 28 of its electoral votes in this contest for Jackson and by 1832 a new census brought the state’s total to a new high of thirty-electors, still second most in the country.
Any Democratic tradition that might have been forming in Pennsylvania was put on hold by Whig candidate William Henry Harrison. Although his Presidency was the shortest in American history Harrison stomped incumbent President Martin Van Buren 234-60 in the electoral college winning the 1840 election. The recently formed Whig Party, now united behind a single candidate, even held their first national convention in the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg that year.
As the exploration of the American-west stretched population Pennsylvania dropped to 26 electoral-votes for the 1844 and '48 elections where it never the less played in important role siding with the victor in close contests each year. By the time Democrat Franklin Pierce won in an electoral landslide in 1852 the Keystone State had rebounded in size with 27-electors.
In 1856 the state of Pennsylvania placed its one and only candidate in the White House helping Democrat James Buchanan to a decisive win in an election with three prominent candidates. Buchanan actually defeated sitting President Franklin Pierce in a primary challenge to secure the party nomination. The short-lived American or “Know Nothing” Party formed from the ashes of the Whig’s also held its convention in Philadelphia that year selecting former President Millard Fillmore as its nominee.
Most historians agree that largely due to his mishandling of the slavery issue James Buchanan ranks near the top of the list of worst American Presidents. His failure to even win re-nomination in 1860, the subsequent defeat of the Democrats by Abraham Lincoln and the outbreak of the Civil War changed the course of American political history and Pennsylvania’s role in the presidency.
1860-1932: Civil War & the Republican stronghold
Tensions had been brewing throughout the 1850s on the issues of states rights and slavery. Those tensions would boil over following the election of 1860. Angered by the domestic agenda of Pennsylvanian President James Buchanan the first truly sectional major party rose to power in the form of the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln won the Republican nomination and then against a divided field of Democrats took home the Presidency.
Fearing the policies of the new President who campaigned heavily against slavery the country split in two and the new Confederacy was formed. Pennsylvania still the second largest state in the country at this time threw its support behind Lincoln who carried the Keystone State by nearly nineteen-percentage points in the general election. Lincoln’s Presidency would be so transforming that it set the stage for a Republican north and Pennsylvania over the next several decades.
Reunited again four years later the Democratic Party would make periodic inroads in Pennsylvania although the state would not go “blue” again for another 72-years. The closest election during this period came in 1876 when Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the Presidency by the narrowest of margins. His one-electoral vote victory offset a popular vote margin of over three-percentage points in favor of Democrat Samuel Tilden. Pennsylvania played a critical role in the outcome of this election. With its population rapidly growing during the height of the industrial revolution and its electoral clout up to 29-votes the Keystone State was the only one in the northeast region to deliver for Hayes.
Four years later native son and former Civil War General Winfield Hancock made a bid for the Presidency against Republican James Garfield. Hancock lost the popular vote by fewer than 2,000 making it the closest margin in election history. In both an odd twist and perfect example of Republican strength in Pennsylvania during that era even though Hancock hailed from the Philadelphia area he failed to capture his home state. This is particularly notable considering how close the popular vote was in the general election. Hancock lost Pennsylvania by better than four-percentage points, far more than the 0.1% with which he lost the country.
The GOP steamrolled ahead in Pennsylvania winning all but one contest by at least six-percentage points and capturing the White House in fourteen of the eighteen elections held between Lincoln’s 1860 victory and Herbert Hoover’s win in 1928. The only exception came in 1912 when a split ticket helped Democrat Woodrow Wilson secure victory over independent former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt and sitting GOP President William Howard Taft. Excluding that election oddity the Republican Party candidate won by an average of 17.5% in Pennsylvania between 1860-1932.
1936-1988: Battleground Pennsylvania
With the United States plunged deep into an economic depression the era of Republican dominance came to a swift end with the landslide victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. Although Pennsylvania had been carried in that election by sitting President Herbert Hoover his margin of just 5.5% signaled a philosophical change was on the horizon.
Roosevelt’s historic landslide victory of 1936 included a sixteen-point victory in the Keystone and while his margins of victory both in PA and nationally were less impressive in the years that followed he still carried the state in 1940 and '44. In addition to Roosevelt’s economic agenda and World War II leadership the change in Pennsylvania voting patterns came from working class Americans and minorities – in no short supply in the industrial north – who were siding heavily with Democratic policies.
In spite of this Pennsylvania’s Republican tradition remained in tact and would continue to be reckoned with in the years that followed. Moderate Republican Thomas Dewey carried Pennsylvania in 1948 despite his upset loss to Democrat Harry Truman on a national scale. Both parties also held their conventions in Philadelphia that year. Dwight Eisenhower who beat Democrat Adlai Stevenson twice in the 1950s by decisive margins also carried the Keystone State with little resistance. Interestingly Eisenhower while not a native born Pennsylvania did move his residence to Gettysburg PA during his first term and could be considered the state’s second ever President after James Buchanan.
As population patterns shifted nationally Pennsylvania’s electoral clout which had peaked in the election years between 1912-28 (38-electoral votes) would begin a steady decline that continues to this day. Pennsylvania continued to play a critical role in the outcome of several elections however. 1960 was the closest Presidential election of the 20th century with a popular vote margin of around 0.1% and no less than nineteen states carried by less than three-percentage points.
Democrat John F. Kennedy was aided heavily by his modest victory in the Keystone State defeating Richard Nixon and collecting its 32-electoral votes. Four years later Lyndon Johnson set a Democratic record in Pennsylvania crushing Barry Goldwater by better than thirty-points in his landslide victory. Nixon’s narrow popular vote win in 1968 over Democratic Hubert Humphrey belied his loss in Pennsylvania by 3.6% but four years later he took home PA by twenty-points en route to a landslide of historic proportions.
Pennsylvania continued to stay relatively in line with the general national tide in the years that followed. Democratic Jimmy Carter won the 1976 election by a little more than two-percentage points while winning the battleground state of Pennsylvania by 2.7%. From 1980-88 Republican's Ronald Reagan and George Bush also scored victories in the Keystone State although their large wins nationally lessened the importance of their success in Pennsylvania.
1992-Present: The left-leaning Pennsylvania
Although Republican Presidents were ultimately successful in Pennsylvania throughout the 1980s there were signs that the state was inching further to the political left. Ronald Reagan won the 1984 election over Walter Mondale by nineteen-percentage points by only carried Pennsylvania by 7.4%. Pre-election polls from 1988 correctly suggested that Pennsylvania would be a key battleground state in a year where Democrats were hopeful. Republican George H.W. Bush carried most of surrounding Philadelphia and ultimately the Key Stone State’s 25-electoral votes. Still his victory of just 2.3% was noticeably lower than 7.8% margin he collected nationally.
The tide turned convincingly in 1992 with the arrival of Arkansas Democrat Bill Clinton on the scene. That year’s election was unique also because of the third-part presence of billionaire Ross Perot posing a challenge both to Clinton and sitting President George H.W. Bush. Perot would become the most successful third-party candidate – in terms of the popular vote total – since Teddy Roosevelt. He took home nearly nineteen-percent nationally while winning better than eighteen-percent in Pennsylvania.
The impact of Pennsylvania’s clout electorally speaking had diminished somewhat by 1992. With much of the America's population gains shifting south and westward the Keystone State dropped to being the fifth largest state with 23-electoral votes after the 1990 census. Still it would be something of a bellwether for Clinton and the Democrats who won PA by better than nine-percentage points in both 1992 and 1996. The easy Clinton victories of the 90s also served as a realigning election to an extent. The northeast once a bastion of Republican support had now almost fully changed sides and in certain instances have done so by wide-margins.
Pennsylvania’s role in Presidential politics was become more and more crucial in spite of its shrinking size on the electoral map. In this current decade the Keystone State has been visited and campaigned in innumerable times both by Democrats and Republicans positioning it as one of the three key battleground states along with Florida and Ohio. This was never more apparent than in the 2000 election one of the closest battles in Presidential history. George W. Bush accepted the GOP nomination at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia that year but it was Democrat Al Gore that captured the state’s 23-electoral votes by a little better than four-percentage points.
Bush ended up as the winner in the highly disputed election where Florida took center state. Four years later as President Bush ran for reelection Pennsylvania was again focused upon as one of the critical swing-states that would eventually decide the race. Pre-election polls conducted on the eve of the November 2nd election showed Pennsylvania at a near deadlock. Survey USA had a John Kerry lead of one-point, Quinnipiac showed a deadlocked tie and Gallup had Bush with a four-point lead. In the end Democrat John Kerry won the Keystone State by 2.5% but lost by around that same marginally nationally to Bush who captured the two other major battleground states of Florida and Ohio.
The recent 2008 election ushered in Democrat Barack Obama as the decisive winner both nationally and in Pennsylvania. Republican nominee John McCain took interest never the less in Pennsylvania’s crucial 21-electoral votes. After all Hillary Clinton had defeated Obama soundly in that year’s primary contest appealing more towards older, white and working class voters that lived in the central, northern and suburban regions of the state.
Polls conducted just days before the general election however showed the strength of Obama and the Democrats in PA hard to ignore. On Election Day November 4th Barack Obama took home a resounding victory in Pennsylvania by 10.3% while winning the election with 365-electoral votes. It was the best performance for a Democrat in Pennsylvania since Lyndon Johnson’s thirty-point win there in 1964 and further established the left-leaning reputation Pennsylvania currently holds. Due to the potent mixture of its size, political diversity and regional significance Pennsylvania will no doubt continue to play a significant role in Presidential politics and the outcome of elections for decades to come.
Pennsylvania has been viewed as an essential piece to the electoral puzzle of nearly every Presidential candidate over the past several decades. Its significant electoral clout along with the competitive nature of its politics places it high upon the mantle of most sought after states. Perhaps only Florida and Ohio have garnered more attention in recent years from national political campaigns attracted to the rich diversity of voter ideologies in both the primary and general election seasons.
The Keystone State was always a significant electoral victory for any candidate but it wasn’t always a competitive one. Admitted as the second state after ratifying the Constitution in December of 1787, Pennsylvania has participated in all 56 general elections dating back to 1789. Here is a history in brief of PA’s role in Presidential politics through the years.
1789-1824: Colonial Era to Jackson & the party split
In 1789 American War hero George Washington ran unopposed and swept all ten states en route to becoming the first American President. Pennsylvania’s electoral clout was sizable in the first ever election containing ten-electoral votes, tied with Massachusetts and Virginia for most. Less than 1.3% of an estimated 2.4-million eligible/free voters cast their votes in the election. John Adams was selected as Vice President getting about half the 69-total electoral voters from a scattered field of nearly a dozen candidates who ran for the position.
Nearly four years later the immensely popular Washington again ran unopposed and his Vice President Adams was also reelected. Pennsylvania dropped to the third largest state on the electoral map with fifteen-votes but it still composed over 11% of the country now fifteen states strong. In 1796 Pennsylvanians chose Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson for President but found themselves on the losing end to Federalist and sitting VP John Adams. The election was a close contest with Adams securing the victory by way of a narrow 71-68 electoral vote margin.
Four years later Pennsylvania was a focal point for the first time in Presidential politics. Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams but due to a split in the Democratic-Republican Party Aaron Burr was left with as many electoral votes (73) as the would-be President Jefferson. In the general election the Keystone State almost evenly split its fifteen electors between Jefferson and Adams but helped Jefferson eventually win the Presidency by voting for him 9-4 over Burr in a special election of state delegations.
Over the next several elections a series of landslide victories in which Pennsylvania sided with the winner reduced the state’s importance on the national scale. Still its size and clout could not be ignored as PA was twenty-electors strong in both the 1804 and 1808 elections, second most in the union. Again from 1812-1820 Pennsylvania with 25-electors had the second most in America, exceeded only by the state of New York’s 29.
In 1824 the infamous “corrupt bargain” election helped elect John Quincy Adams over the more popular Andrew Jackson. In an odd twist four members of the same party (Democratic-Republican) ran for President with Jackson finishing as the clear winner in terms of both popular and electoral votes but not securing the majority needed to take office automatically. Pennsylvania came out strong for "Old Hickory" in both the general and special House elections but Adams ultimately secured the victory.
1828-1856: Formation of modern parties & the election of James Buchanan
Angered by his controversial loss in the 1824 election Andrew Jackson helped engineer a split in the Democratic-Republican Party. By the 1828 election he would help engineer the newly formed Democrats’ rise to power over Quincy Adams and the National Republican Party. Pennsylvania cast all 28 of its electoral votes in this contest for Jackson and by 1832 a new census brought the state’s total to a new high of thirty-electors, still second most in the country.
Any Democratic tradition that might have been forming in Pennsylvania was put on hold by Whig candidate William Henry Harrison. Although his Presidency was the shortest in American history Harrison stomped incumbent President Martin Van Buren 234-60 in the electoral college winning the 1840 election. The recently formed Whig Party, now united behind a single candidate, even held their first national convention in the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg that year.
As the exploration of the American-west stretched population Pennsylvania dropped to 26 electoral-votes for the 1844 and '48 elections where it never the less played in important role siding with the victor in close contests each year. By the time Democrat Franklin Pierce won in an electoral landslide in 1852 the Keystone State had rebounded in size with 27-electors.
In 1856 the state of Pennsylvania placed its one and only candidate in the White House helping Democrat James Buchanan to a decisive win in an election with three prominent candidates. Buchanan actually defeated sitting President Franklin Pierce in a primary challenge to secure the party nomination. The short-lived American or “Know Nothing” Party formed from the ashes of the Whig’s also held its convention in Philadelphia that year selecting former President Millard Fillmore as its nominee.
Most historians agree that largely due to his mishandling of the slavery issue James Buchanan ranks near the top of the list of worst American Presidents. His failure to even win re-nomination in 1860, the subsequent defeat of the Democrats by Abraham Lincoln and the outbreak of the Civil War changed the course of American political history and Pennsylvania’s role in the presidency.
1860-1932: Civil War & the Republican stronghold
Tensions had been brewing throughout the 1850s on the issues of states rights and slavery. Those tensions would boil over following the election of 1860. Angered by the domestic agenda of Pennsylvanian President James Buchanan the first truly sectional major party rose to power in the form of the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln won the Republican nomination and then against a divided field of Democrats took home the Presidency.
Fearing the policies of the new President who campaigned heavily against slavery the country split in two and the new Confederacy was formed. Pennsylvania still the second largest state in the country at this time threw its support behind Lincoln who carried the Keystone State by nearly nineteen-percentage points in the general election. Lincoln’s Presidency would be so transforming that it set the stage for a Republican north and Pennsylvania over the next several decades.
Reunited again four years later the Democratic Party would make periodic inroads in Pennsylvania although the state would not go “blue” again for another 72-years. The closest election during this period came in 1876 when Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the Presidency by the narrowest of margins. His one-electoral vote victory offset a popular vote margin of over three-percentage points in favor of Democrat Samuel Tilden. Pennsylvania played a critical role in the outcome of this election. With its population rapidly growing during the height of the industrial revolution and its electoral clout up to 29-votes the Keystone State was the only one in the northeast region to deliver for Hayes.
Four years later native son and former Civil War General Winfield Hancock made a bid for the Presidency against Republican James Garfield. Hancock lost the popular vote by fewer than 2,000 making it the closest margin in election history. In both an odd twist and perfect example of Republican strength in Pennsylvania during that era even though Hancock hailed from the Philadelphia area he failed to capture his home state. This is particularly notable considering how close the popular vote was in the general election. Hancock lost Pennsylvania by better than four-percentage points, far more than the 0.1% with which he lost the country.
The GOP steamrolled ahead in Pennsylvania winning all but one contest by at least six-percentage points and capturing the White House in fourteen of the eighteen elections held between Lincoln’s 1860 victory and Herbert Hoover’s win in 1928. The only exception came in 1912 when a split ticket helped Democrat Woodrow Wilson secure victory over independent former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt and sitting GOP President William Howard Taft. Excluding that election oddity the Republican Party candidate won by an average of 17.5% in Pennsylvania between 1860-1932.
1936-1988: Battleground Pennsylvania
With the United States plunged deep into an economic depression the era of Republican dominance came to a swift end with the landslide victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. Although Pennsylvania had been carried in that election by sitting President Herbert Hoover his margin of just 5.5% signaled a philosophical change was on the horizon.
Roosevelt’s historic landslide victory of 1936 included a sixteen-point victory in the Keystone and while his margins of victory both in PA and nationally were less impressive in the years that followed he still carried the state in 1940 and '44. In addition to Roosevelt’s economic agenda and World War II leadership the change in Pennsylvania voting patterns came from working class Americans and minorities – in no short supply in the industrial north – who were siding heavily with Democratic policies.
In spite of this Pennsylvania’s Republican tradition remained in tact and would continue to be reckoned with in the years that followed. Moderate Republican Thomas Dewey carried Pennsylvania in 1948 despite his upset loss to Democrat Harry Truman on a national scale. Both parties also held their conventions in Philadelphia that year. Dwight Eisenhower who beat Democrat Adlai Stevenson twice in the 1950s by decisive margins also carried the Keystone State with little resistance. Interestingly Eisenhower while not a native born Pennsylvania did move his residence to Gettysburg PA during his first term and could be considered the state’s second ever President after James Buchanan.
As population patterns shifted nationally Pennsylvania’s electoral clout which had peaked in the election years between 1912-28 (38-electoral votes) would begin a steady decline that continues to this day. Pennsylvania continued to play a critical role in the outcome of several elections however. 1960 was the closest Presidential election of the 20th century with a popular vote margin of around 0.1% and no less than nineteen states carried by less than three-percentage points.
Democrat John F. Kennedy was aided heavily by his modest victory in the Keystone State defeating Richard Nixon and collecting its 32-electoral votes. Four years later Lyndon Johnson set a Democratic record in Pennsylvania crushing Barry Goldwater by better than thirty-points in his landslide victory. Nixon’s narrow popular vote win in 1968 over Democratic Hubert Humphrey belied his loss in Pennsylvania by 3.6% but four years later he took home PA by twenty-points en route to a landslide of historic proportions.
Pennsylvania continued to stay relatively in line with the general national tide in the years that followed. Democratic Jimmy Carter won the 1976 election by a little more than two-percentage points while winning the battleground state of Pennsylvania by 2.7%. From 1980-88 Republican's Ronald Reagan and George Bush also scored victories in the Keystone State although their large wins nationally lessened the importance of their success in Pennsylvania.
1992-Present: The left-leaning Pennsylvania
Although Republican Presidents were ultimately successful in Pennsylvania throughout the 1980s there were signs that the state was inching further to the political left. Ronald Reagan won the 1984 election over Walter Mondale by nineteen-percentage points by only carried Pennsylvania by 7.4%. Pre-election polls from 1988 correctly suggested that Pennsylvania would be a key battleground state in a year where Democrats were hopeful. Republican George H.W. Bush carried most of surrounding Philadelphia and ultimately the Key Stone State’s 25-electoral votes. Still his victory of just 2.3% was noticeably lower than 7.8% margin he collected nationally.
The tide turned convincingly in 1992 with the arrival of Arkansas Democrat Bill Clinton on the scene. That year’s election was unique also because of the third-part presence of billionaire Ross Perot posing a challenge both to Clinton and sitting President George H.W. Bush. Perot would become the most successful third-party candidate – in terms of the popular vote total – since Teddy Roosevelt. He took home nearly nineteen-percent nationally while winning better than eighteen-percent in Pennsylvania.
The impact of Pennsylvania’s clout electorally speaking had diminished somewhat by 1992. With much of the America's population gains shifting south and westward the Keystone State dropped to being the fifth largest state with 23-electoral votes after the 1990 census. Still it would be something of a bellwether for Clinton and the Democrats who won PA by better than nine-percentage points in both 1992 and 1996. The easy Clinton victories of the 90s also served as a realigning election to an extent. The northeast once a bastion of Republican support had now almost fully changed sides and in certain instances have done so by wide-margins.
Pennsylvania’s role in Presidential politics was become more and more crucial in spite of its shrinking size on the electoral map. In this current decade the Keystone State has been visited and campaigned in innumerable times both by Democrats and Republicans positioning it as one of the three key battleground states along with Florida and Ohio. This was never more apparent than in the 2000 election one of the closest battles in Presidential history. George W. Bush accepted the GOP nomination at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia that year but it was Democrat Al Gore that captured the state’s 23-electoral votes by a little better than four-percentage points.
Bush ended up as the winner in the highly disputed election where Florida took center state. Four years later as President Bush ran for reelection Pennsylvania was again focused upon as one of the critical swing-states that would eventually decide the race. Pre-election polls conducted on the eve of the November 2nd election showed Pennsylvania at a near deadlock. Survey USA had a John Kerry lead of one-point, Quinnipiac showed a deadlocked tie and Gallup had Bush with a four-point lead. In the end Democrat John Kerry won the Keystone State by 2.5% but lost by around that same marginally nationally to Bush who captured the two other major battleground states of Florida and Ohio.
The recent 2008 election ushered in Democrat Barack Obama as the decisive winner both nationally and in Pennsylvania. Republican nominee John McCain took interest never the less in Pennsylvania’s crucial 21-electoral votes. After all Hillary Clinton had defeated Obama soundly in that year’s primary contest appealing more towards older, white and working class voters that lived in the central, northern and suburban regions of the state.
Polls conducted just days before the general election however showed the strength of Obama and the Democrats in PA hard to ignore. On Election Day November 4th Barack Obama took home a resounding victory in Pennsylvania by 10.3% while winning the election with 365-electoral votes. It was the best performance for a Democrat in Pennsylvania since Lyndon Johnson’s thirty-point win there in 1964 and further established the left-leaning reputation Pennsylvania currently holds. Due to the potent mixture of its size, political diversity and regional significance Pennsylvania will no doubt continue to play a significant role in Presidential politics and the outcome of elections for decades to come.
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