Will Trump tide overtake Pa.?
Well, according to the highly unofficial and unscientific 蘑菇视频 weekly poll, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will win Tuesday’s election by a landslide.
According to the poll, which asked people who they were voting for president, 1,397 residents selected Trump while only 630 picked Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Taking a look at the poll along with all the Trump signs posted everywhere in the area, you have to conclude that the GOP presidential candidate is definitely going to win at least here in Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties.
The only problem for Trump is he’ll probably need more than a victory here to topple Clinton in the commonwealth. And as all the pundits agree, Trump needs to capture Pennsylvania’s 20 votes in the Electoral College if he has any chance of being our next president.
Numbers matter in elections, so here are the numbers for Pennsylvania. Philadelphia and its four surrounding counties have about 4 million people, a third of the 12 million people living in the state. The next major area is the Greater Pittsburgh Metro Area, which contains 2.3 million people. Combined with the Philadelphia area, it makes up half of the state’s population.
Back in 2012, President Obama took Philadelphia by 466,220 votes and nearby Montgomery and Delaware counties by another 106,294 votes. Bucks and Chester counties, two other big suburban counties outside Philadelphia split their votes, with Obama winning by 1,644 votes.
Meanwhile, Obama won Allegheny County by 88,847 votes. That was extremely important as the other counties in the GPMA, Fayette, Westmoreland, Washington, Butler, Beaver and Armstrong all went for Obama’s opponent, Republican Mitt Romney. However, he only won those counties by a margin of 78,958, giving Obama a win of 9,889 in the GPMA.
Overall, Obama received 1,112,347 of his 2,907,448 votes in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Chester, Bucks, Delaware and Allegheny counties. He won only seven other counties on his way to victory.
Clearly Trump will have to do better than Romney in those major metropolitan areas, including right here, to win the election. So, the question becomes how much better can Trump do than Romney, especially in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
The benchmark in our area will be Romney’s numbers back in 2012.聽 He won Fayette County, 25,845 to 21,841; Greene County, 7,985 to 5,564; Washington County, 50,455 to 38,503; and Westmoreland County, 103,429 to 63,380.
If Trump does significantly better and gets close to a net advantage of around 100,000 in the GPMA and cuts Clinton’s lead in the Philadelphia area to around 400,000 then all bets will be off. If that happens, Trump could win Pennsylvania and the presidency.
Another looming question is what will be the effect of the Trump campaign in the local legislative races. For the first time in ages, Republican are fielding bona fide candidates in all five local legislative elections. And the state Republican Party is providing them with the financial resources that they haven’t had in the past.
Back in 2014, Ryan Warner became the first Fayette County Republican to win a legislative contest in ages. Can he be re-elected, and, if so, will he be joined by other Republican candidates Tuesday night? If all five Republicans win, you can probably attributed it to the Trump tide. Maybe not so much if the Democrats pick up a majority of the local seats.
It’s interesting that all the local Republican legislative candidates made no bones about supporting Trump except Bud Cook, who’s seeking the seat in the 49th Legislative District. Cook declined to say who he’s supporting. Meanwhile, his opponent, Alan Benyak, was the only Democratic candidate to come out publicly for Clinton.
Another local race to watch will be the 9th Congressional District where Republican Bill Shuster is in a rematch with Art Halvorson. Shuster topped Halvorson in the GOP primary but Halvorson won the Democratic nomination via the write-in route. Both have enthusiastically supported Trump, with Shuster claiming he’s the only one with his endorsement.
Also in the race is Democrat Adam Sedlock, who’s waging his own write-in campaign. For what it’s worth, he’s a big supporter of Clinton. How much of an impact he’ll have on the race remains to be seen.
Statewide, there’s the election for the U.S. Senate between Republican incumbent Pat Toomey and his Democratic challenger Katy McGinty. Toomey said he hasn’t made his mind up if he’ll vote for Trump while McGinty has been an outright backer of Clinton. There are three other statwide races on the ballot, auditor general, attorney general and treasurer. However, they’ve taken a backseat to all the other sizzling races going on.
It all adds up to what should be a very interesting election, featuring one of the most dramatic presidential campaigns in the history of the country. And you can follow the returns on the 蘑菇视频’s website, heraldstandard.com from 9 p.m. until midnight. We’ll keep you updated with the latest results in national, state and local races. Stay with us, and you’ll on top of everything all night long.
Mark O’Keefe is the editorial page editor of the 蘑菇视频. He can be reached by email at mokeefe@heraldstandard.com, by phone at 724-439-7569 or by regular mail at 8 Church St., Uniontown, Pa., 15401.