As George Will aptly commented many moons ago, the old Republican playbook to win the presidency was to win the South, most of the Midwest, and the West, and then spend the equivalent of the GDP of Brazil and take Ohio. Barack Obama shredded that in 2008. Now, the Buckeye State is reliably Republican, whereas all eyes are turning toward its neighbor, Pennsylvania. It’s a state that should be winnable for Republicans, given the hunting culture, its enclave of white working-class workers, and its state politics not being overly progressive. And yet, in the past four decades, the GOP has only managed to win the state in the 1988 and 2016 presidential elections. The Keystone State is called a swing state—I’m not sure that moniker is appropriate.
The Democratic Party playbook here is simple: drive up turnout in the collar counties around Philadelphia, which they’ve perfected, and do the same in Allegheny County. It’s paid off dividends for decades. In 2011, there were signs of hope with the local courthouse races that cycle, where Republicans increased their reach, retaking Westmoreland County for the first time since the 1950s. These aren’t exciting races, but they provide the foundation and candidate pool for future statewide runs. That collapsed quickly. The Pennsylvania GOP has no deep candidate bench, which is how we got Dr. Oz as our Senate candidate for the 2022 midterms. Whoever wins Pennsylvania in 2024 will run the table the rest of election night, which is why Democrats are drooling over Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s current tenure, which sits at a 57 percent approval rating. The one thing that is key to the Democrats’ Keystone protocol might shock the party's more progressive elements: Trump supporters (via Axios) [emphasis mine]:
New polling and conversations with top Pennsylvania political operatives underscore the emergence of this critical voting bloc.
Shapiro's approval rating is an enviable 57%, according to a new Quinnipiac poll, with his political standing boosted by the speedy rebuilding of the I-95 corridor badly damaged by a June trucking accident.
Shapiro is winning the approval of about one-third of Trump voters, even as the poll finds Trump is statistically tied with President Biden in a 2024 matchup. Biden's approval rating in the statewide survey is a lowly 39%.
A new analysis published by the American Enterprise Institute concludes there's a "chunk of rural white working-class voters [that] will indeed support a Democrat with the right aesthetic and messaging."
[…]
The bottom line: If Democrats can hold even a fraction of their blue-collar Trump-Fetterman-Shapiro voters into 2024, it would bode well for Biden's chances of winning a second term.
And if Democrats can re-create that coalition in Pennsylvania, it would also bode well for winning Wisconsin and Michigan — the blue wall of states where a sweep would all but guarantee a presidential victory.
White working class voters do matter. This is yet another red flag showing how things could get a lot easier for Democrats if they tailored their messaging toward shared goals, instead of doubling down on urban population centers, non-white voter blocs, and demonizing working people. Mr. Shapiro has done that, a name we should be on the lookout years down the road for a presidential bid of his own. Axios added that he’s taking on teachers’ unions, supports private school vouchers, and removed the requirement that you need a college degree for most state jobs.
But the level of Trump support in this political climate is remarkable. It again shows or should remind, the national media that the Trump coalition isn’t reliably Republican. They will vote for Democrats as they’ve done in 2018, 2020, and 2022. It’s a coalition where a significant share describes themselves as economically progressive. You can’t pigeonhole them. The publication did add that there has been a precipitous decline in non-white voter support for Democrats, which is something to keep an eye on, but for now—Biden could easily win Pennsylvania again and a second term.
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