Geography of the Election: The Philadelphia Collar Counties - A Splash of Red

The Obama coalition of 2008 has begun to fracture with independents, women and college educated voters bolting to Republicans and the youth vote seemingly uninterested in this election. But perhaps the most critical change took place in suburbia. This was particularly evident last week in southeastern Pennsylvania, especially in the suburban Philadelphia counties.

Historically in Pennsylvania statewide Democratic candidates won big in Philadelphia only to see their margin decimated in the traditionally heavily Republican suburban counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery, known as the Philadelphia “Collar Counties.” This trend began to shift in the 1990s due in large measure to the GOP stance on abortion and other social issues.

During the 1990s, Democratic candidates were able to claim the mantel of moderation by positioning themselves as fiscally conservative and socially moderate. Affluent, college educated, women, and younger voters from traditionally staunch Republican families joined with established Democratic constituencies including the Jewish community, working class voters from old suburban mill towns, and minority voters to form winning coalitions throughout the collar counties.

During the 2000s, Democrats would be elected to fill Congressional seats in three of the four collar counties. Not surprisingly, no Republican at the top of the ticket would win Pennsylvania over the next 10 years. The main reason was the collar counties were voting more Democratic with each election. The table below shows the percentage of the vote won by the Republican candidate at the top of the ticket from 2000 - 2008:

In 2010, the trend began to favor Republicans again. The GOP picked up a net five Congressional seats including two in the southeast region. It also propelled State House Republicans to a huge victory moving from 99 seats to a projected 111 – 92 majority. Republican Tom Corbett won the governorship by 10 percentage points with 55 percent of the vote. Conservative Pat Toomey outpaced Joe Sestak for the U. S. Senate by two percentage points.

A look at the trends shows that both statewide Republican candidates ran stronger in the collar counties than did Senator John McCain in 2008 in his bid for President:

Tom Corbett ran nearly 10 percentage points ahead of McCain in the collar counties. In fact, Corbett carried these counties by 22,370 votes as he reversed the top of the ticket trend of the past decade. Although this was not enough to offset the 274,373 he lost by in Philadelphia at least he won enough elsewhere, including in the collar countries, to win a fairly impressive victory statewide.

Pat Toomey, a clear conservative, ran well ahead of the vote former Senator, and social conservative, Rick Santorum was able to win four years earlier, but he did not perform as well as Corbett did against McCain. This can be explained in part by the fact that his opponent, Joe Sestak, was an elected Congressman from Delaware County.

Toomey would lose the collar counties by 27,195 votes. This gave him a much steeper hill to climb in the other 61 counties of Pennsylvania, but at least he was not out of the game as had been McCain, Santorum, and Fisher over the past 10 years.

Will this change in voting pattern continue? It could if Republicans can hold Independent voters by delivering solid results at both the Federal and State levels. Republicans will now control redistricting in Pennsylvania. This should allow them to consolidate the gains made this year in Congress, but does not change the fact that the Philadelphia collar counties will continue to determine the fate of statewide candidates in Pennsylvania into the foreseeable future.

The fight in Washington over the next two years will likely be the traditional “heart vs. head” fight of the past where Democrats push for more social programs and Republicans position on the costs of these programs.

The 2010 election in southeastern Pennsylvania seemed to prove that a bad economy and fears of continuing increases in taxes and debt will add a splash of red to the collar counties “light blue” voters.

Dennis M. Powell is president and CEO of Massey Powell, an issues management consulting company located in Plymouth Meeting, PA.