Underreported Polling Suggests Trump Is Poised To Win PA

Authored by Athan Koutsiouroumbas via RealClearPennsylvania,

If past is prologue, Donald Trump will win Pennsylvania.

Eight years ago this week, Hillary Clinton led in Pennsylvania by more than nine points; four years ago, Joe Biden led by nearly six points. Clinton lost Pennsylvania by less than a point, while Biden won it by more than a point.

Heading into the Democratic National Convention, the Emerson/RealClearPennsylvania poll showed Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris by a point.

Averaging together the Pennsylvania polling taken since Harris became the Democratic Party’s nominee, the state’s presidential race is a dead heat.

Of the fifty-nine public polls released in 2016 tracking the Pennsylvania presidential race, Trump led in only two. In 2020, Trump led in only five of the eighty-four Pennsylvania polls released.

This cycle, Trump has led in thirteen of the seventeen Pennsylvania polls released. In fact, Trump is leading more polls than the previous two election cycles combined, and we have yet to reach Labor Day, when polling frequency intensifies.

Considering the previous Pennsylvania election results, today’s polling suggests that Trump is poised to seize the largest margin of victory for a presidential candidate in Pennsylvania since Barack Obama’s eight-point win in 2008.

It’s unlikely that Trump can duplicate Obama’s margin. Pennsylvania voters are supremely polarized, just like elsewhere in the country. The partisan mobilization of the left and right guarantees a close race. Harris’s candidacy has ignited a previously dormant liberal base, while legal persecution and an assassination attempt on Trump crystallized voting as a cultural imperative on the right.

Nonetheless, the dramatic polling shift compared with previous presidential election cycles is confounding, as no pivotal factor explains Trump’s persistent overperformance. Rather, it appears to be caused by an accrual of factors.

One factor may be the reputed “shy Trump voters” who are no longer inhibited from voicing their support. These voters shocked the world in 2016 and defied 2020 polling. They are now out of the Trump closet, loud and proud.

Another factor may be the strength of regional biases. In northeastern Pennsylvania, Biden wore his “Scranton Joe” moniker proudly, emphasizing his birthplace and hardscrabble roots in the Commonwealth. It helped Biden tap into the region’s swing voters in a way that Clinton could not. Now these voters are trending Republican, and Biden’s absence from the ticket gives license for them to go with the GOP.

It’s a similar dynamic in northwestern Pennsylvania. Erie County’s working-class voters, who put both Obama and Trump in office, are unlikely to lean toward Harris, who calls San Francisco home. In Butler County, where Trump was shot and a beloved firefighter was murdered in the crossfire, voters will surge for Trump to a historic level.

In the Philadelphia media market, which includes Delaware, daily political coverage included Biden’s senatorial career for over forty years. Philadelphia and suburban residents learned about Biden’s doings no differently than from their own senators. Biden improved on Clinton’s historic suburban margins; Harris cannot recreate this affinity.

An African-American turnout surge in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, akin to that which propelled Obama into office, is highly likely. However, the anecdotes of Trump getting a closer look from black males are real. He earned 12% of the black vote in 2020, and it is not unreasonable to expect that he could maintain or improve on that performance, which may negate a Harris-driven turnout surge.

Driving the wedge with African American males, and with most Pennsylvanians, is the economy. Over 50% of Pennsylvanians rank the economy as the top issue, with Trump carrying a commanding lead over Harris in this regard. Meanwhile, less than 5% of voters rate abortion access as the election’s top issue. Most Pennsylvania political analysts cannot recall a time this century when a single issue so dominated voters’ priorities.

The unprecedented shift in Pennsylvania’s voter registration is yet another factor. Since 2008, the 1.1 million-voter Democratic registration advantage has whittled down to about 350,000. Prior to the 2024 Pennsylvania primary, all 67 of Pennsylvania’s counties saw net gains of Republican voters. Should the trend continue, Pennsylvania will be majority Republican by 2028.

Mail-in balloting is relatively new to Pennsylvania. Starting during the 2020 Covid lockdowns, Democratic applicants hold a nearly 3:1 advantage over Republicans. While the margin is daunting, the lack of enthusiasm for Biden’s candidacy may hold relief for Republicans. 

In the 2020 presidential election, nearly 1.7 million Democrats applied for a mail-in ballot; more than half of applicants applied after the third week of August. In the 2022 midterm, more than 900,000 Democrats applied for a mail-in ballot; about one-third applied after the same week in August. This year, about 650,000 Democrats have applied as of last week. To meet 2020’s tally, the Democrats have a lot of work to do.  Yet all these factors pale beside the stunning polling trend that Trump is experiencing in the Keystone State. The former president’s Pennsylvania polling strength and consistency may be the most underreported trend of the 2024 election cycle.