Philly stakes: Trump appears to overperform in surprising Pennsylvania places

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Trump to begin term with Republican Senate control

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No Republican presidential candidate has won Philadelphia County since Herbert Hoover’s ill-fated 1932 contest, and Donald Trump was no different.

Pennsylvania’s largest city and several other blue bastions saw marked movement in the mogul’s direction last week, according to post-mortem figures.

Of the top 10 counties where Trump overperformed his 2020 numbers the most, six are or were majority Democrat.

Trump increased his margin the most – by 7.5 points – in the Poconos’ Monroe County, a rapidly suburbanizing area that has been trending blue with ex-pats from New York City suburbs moving in.

Philadelphia fell to sixth out of 67 counties, according to New York Times data. 

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Vice President Harris still won Philadelphia by 59 points, but Trump increased his margin by five points, which, accounting for the exponentially larger population, is many more voters than other counties with similar margins. The turnout for Trump in the city may also have positive implications beyond the presidency.

Republicans are also on the rare verge of picking up a state Senate seat in the city, as local outlets reported Thursday. The challenger, Joe Picozzi, is primed to pick up Democrat Jimmy Dillon’s seat in the working-class neighborhood of Mayfair. 

All three of Pennsylvania’s row offices – attorney general, auditor and treasurer – will be Republican, no doubt buoyed by raw-vote tranches from dense counties where Trump overperformed.

After Republicans upset Democrats’ voter-registration advantage in Luzerne County – home to Wilkes-Barre – two months before the election, Trump also made his second-biggest gain there over 2020, by 5.7 points.

President Biden was born in Wilkes-Barre’s twin city, Scranton, where reliably Democrat Lackawanna County saw Trump’s third-best improvement.

Harris narrowly won Lehigh County, where the state’s third-largest city sits. Both candidates visited Allentown in the closing days.

Statistics yet to come will show whether Trump’s reported boost from Hispanics helped the trend in Lehigh, Philadelphia and Berks, home to Latino-majority Reading.

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Allentown, Pa., is the state's third-largest city. (Charles Creitz)

Trump’s fourth-best improvement came from Lehigh, where the growing Latino population in bluer areas lives alongside historically redder Pennsylvania German communities.

Trump also won back Lehigh’s sister county, Northampton, from Biden after pulling off a shocking upset there in 2016. 

Together, Lehigh and Northampton form the postindustrial Lehigh Valley. On Election Day, local outlets reported hourslong lines at the Banana Factory in Bethlehem, where energized Democrat-supporting students at Lehigh University queued to cast their ballot.

In the end, it was Trump who overperformed in the bellwether region, which colloquially includes New Jersey’s Warren County. Trump handily won there, too, along with Rep. Tom Kean Jr., R-N.J.; another closely watched contest in a blue area.

Trump’s coattails also ran long in the Lehigh Valley as its Democrat congresswoman, Susan Wild, tweeted her concession to state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Macungie.

Wild survived three nail-biters since taking the seat upon the retirement of anti-Trump Republican Charlie Dent in 2018.

Trump also overperformed in rural Pike County, the state’s northeast corner, which is anchored by reliably Democrat Milford. 

He also squeaked out a 0.1% win in Bucks County, the most "swing" of Philadelphia’s suburbs. None of Philadelphia’s other collar counties have gone for a Republican since George W. Bush won Chester County in 2004.

Republicans historically saw their widest declines in those Philadelphia collar counties in the time since the Bush-Kerry contest, until Tuesday.

The prospect of a Republican Senate leader being elected from the region seems impossible at present. But now-Judge Dominic Pileggi of Delaware County did just that 20 years ago, and the Democrat supermajority city of Chester even elected Republican Wendell Butler Jr. for one term at the time.

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Philadelphia (Ed Jones/Getty)

But Trump made progress in Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware and Philadelphia this year.

One place that Republican activists had worked hard to flip red this year was otherwise-rural Centre County, home to Penn State University. While Harris ultimately took Centre by two points, Republicans made gains there with Trump performing three points better than in 2020.

Pennsylvania wasn’t all GOP gains, however, as Harris gave Democrats marginal hope in several mid-state counties, particularly those within the hard-fought contest between Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., and Democratic news anchor Janelle Stelson.

Trump won suburban Cumberland County, bordering Harrisburg, by 10 points, but Democrats performed one point better there than in past years, according to Times data.

The same could be said for neighboring deep-red Perry County, where Trump won by 50.

Adams County, home to Gettysburg; Jefferson County, home to Punxsutawney; Snyder County, home to Susquehanna University; and Juniata County all saw Democrats gain a fraction of a point over 2020.

Trump gained in Harrisburg's otherwise-rural Dauphin County itself, but Harris won it by six.