Three factors emerged within the numbers behind Donald Trump’s victory Tuesday in Pennsylvania.
Muted turnout in Philadelphia, the state’s largest city, and growing support for the former president in rural and urban centers combined to help pave the way to Trump’s victory. Also contributing was diminished backing for Vice President Kamala Harris among the coalition of voters who propelled President Joe Biden to victory four years earlier. These elements were the keys to Trump’s victory, political experts said.
“This was a classic case of demographics and geography where Trump and Republicans made modest gains. Very few groups outperformed for Harris, maybe with the exception of college-educated women. Otherwise, it was a night where rural counties and urban counties over-performed for Trump, who bested his 2020 numbers by modest amounts. Those things add up,” said Muhlenberg College political science professor Chris Borick.
Trump turned an 80,000-vote deficit in his loss to Biden in 2020 to a more than 150,000-vote advantage over Harris four years later.
Trump received about 74,000 more votes this year than the 3.37 million he garnered in his 2020 loss, according to unofficial results.
Trump flipped to red several key counties including Bucks, Centre, Erie, Luzerne and Monroe, where Democrats previously won to pave Biden’s path to victory, political experts said.
But it was also lower turnout in Philadelphia and smaller margins of Harris’ victories in other counties thought to be Democratic strongholds that contributed to Trump’s win.
“I was shocked by the turnout numbers in Philadelphia,” said Penn State Harrisburg associate political science professor Dan Mallinson.
It’s a city where about 50,000 fewer voters cast ballots in the presidential race compared to four years earlier and saw Harris pull in a smaller percentage of the vote. Trump improved his tally in Philadelphia and topped 20% of the vote this year.
Those numbers conflict with initial Election Day reports of higher voter turnout in Philadelphia, where campaign officials suggested long lines of the polls reflected a heavy turnout.
“It just reflected long lines,” Mallinson said. “I think Philadelphia is going to be a big part of the story and my guess these numbers mean there was a large number of African American voters there who were not happy with their situation and the positions of the incumbent. They stayed home. The simple story of this election is (Harris) was viewed as an incumbent and the incumbent is unpopular. It didn’t come down to a fight over democracy. It was about the economy,” Mallinson said.
Harris still won Philadelphia by more than 400,000 votes. It wasn’t enough to overcome Trump’s growing support throughout Pennsylvania’s more rural areas and surging favorability in other counties where Democrats have traditionally had success.
Centre County, home to Penn State University’s main campus, flipped from blue to red this year in another shift that was a clear signal Harris’ hope for support among young adults and college students wasn’t as strong as anticipated, Mallinson said.
Several northern Pennsylvania counties such as Lackawanna, Luzerne and Monroe counties were among areas where Harris significantly underperformed Biden’s totals from 2020 and where Trump was able to make up ground, Borick said.
“The most salient issue in the race was his party’s favorablility rating and the unpopularity of the (incumbent party). It created a good environment for the out party. His (Trump’s) personality also realigned with the electorate. It’s a testament to Trump’s brand. If another Republican would have ran with this message, would they have won? Maybe, maybe not,” Borick said.
Trump’s ability to narrow margins and flip counties in the eastern part of the state helped offset stagnant vote totals in Western Pennsylvania. Harris’ totals and margins of victory in Allegheny, Westmoreland and Butler were nearly identical to that of Biden in 2020. Trump cut the Democrat’s victory margin in Washington County by 2 percentage points.
Trump won Westmoreland, a county where Republicans hold a substantial edge in voter registration, in both 2020 and 2024 with nearly 64% of the vote. Republicans account for 52% of registered voters in Westmoreland County.
Harris secured more than 59% of the vote in Allegheny County, mirroring vote totals Biden received four years earlier in the heavily Democratic county.