Parties need to reform themselves
In his after-action summation of last Tuesday’s election, conservative Henry Olson concluded Republicans have to do better with suburban voters, like the ones in the neighborhoods outside of Philadelphia who backed Democrat John Fetterman in his Senate race against Mehmet Oz.
Likewise, Democrats must pick up the pace among rural and semi rural voters, for instance in Fayette County.
The difference is that Democrats seem to have a head start, based on Tuesday’s results.
Here’s the deal (as Joe Biden might say): Big-time Democratic candidates for office are doing a relatively better job than their GOP counterparts in attracting the voters each side needs in order to win races more emphatically and more consistently.
It’s a fact that Democrats Fetterman and Josh Shapiro, the state’s next governor, ran fairly well in places where their party has recently struggled.
Both Fetterman and Shapiro improved on President Biden’s 2020 showing in counties that have a rural or semi-rural cast to them.
As an example, Biden in 2020 garnered 33% of the vote against former President Donald Trump in Fayette County.
Two years later, Fetterman managed 38% against Oz while Shapiro gathered 43% against Republican Doug Mastriano.
The Democrats did even better in Washington County. Fetterman ran off with 42% of the vote in the county while Shapiro flirted with 50%. (He ended the night at 48%.)
The Biden vote total in Washington County in 2020 was 38%.
As for the county Trump loves to campaign in, Westmoreland, Biden limped through there with 35% of the vote.
Two years later, Fetterman was up four points on Biden while Shapiro was 11 points better.
Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland counties are not isolated examples. Just about everywhere you look in the state, Fetterman and Shapiro improved on Biden’s outcomes.
True, Biden was up against Trump; and neither Oz nor Mastriano pack the wallop of the former president.
But vote totals are what they are. The question is, can Democrats build on their 2022 performance in 2024 and beyond? The answer turns on many factors, of course, including what the next 48 months looks like.
It also depends on whether Democrats take a hard look at these counties and try to improve.
During the early days of the Republican ascendancy in Westmoreland County, a dozen and more years ago, the GOP ranks were salted with young party professionals, as skilled as they were passionate, who helped to guide the party to majority status.
(The contrast with the Democratic leadership and workers could not have been starker. The Westmoreland County Democratic Party was running on fumes in those days; party functionaries were barely functioning; they were old, tired, and out of touch.)
For a long time, it’s been obvious that Democrats have neglected to build party strength from the bottom up. Concentrated on the top of the ticket and Washington, D.C., the party has failed to foster robust grassroots strength – the kind of strength needed to elect state legislators or even county commissioners.
Now may be the time for Democrats to strike out in new directions, at least in Pennsylvania. Because party finances are always finite, Democrats might try, not a 67-county strategy, but one that concentrates time and attention between now and Election Day 2024 on rebuilding the party in the dozen or so counties that have shown promise.
Counties like Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland. Other promising clusters include neighbors Lawrence, Mercer, and Butler as well as York, Adams, and Lancaster.
Politics is an art, not a science, so there’s no way to forecast how any attempt at party-building might work out. Besides, so much does depend on messenger-heavy, top-tier candidate performance. They are the tugboats; the rest, largely, are barges trailing in their wake.
As for Republicans, what’s good for one party is good for the other.
Richard Robbins is the author, most recently, of “Troubled Times: The Struggle for Wages, Recognition, and Power in the Age of Coal and Coke.” He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.