A tale of two very different kinds of anti-Peduto voters👇 (As a reminder, PA has closed primaries: Tony Moreno's strength among registered Dems in the precincts where Trump did best is both unsurprising* & 👀)
*unsurprising because 👇
[also, apparently today is my day to retweet classic @RyanDeto articles from dawn to dusk]
pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/pit…
But Moreno's support in Trump-loving Pgh precincts could only carry him so far, given that nearly 4x as many mayoral votes were cast in precincts where Donald Trump got under 5% of the vote than in precincts where he cracked 50%. [Because A: it's a Dem primary, and B: Pittsburgh]
Meanwhile turnout (combining all votes cast) was way up from 4 ys earlier across Pgh's political geography... in contrast to Nov 2020, when votes cast were *down* fr 2016 in Pgh's most anti-Trump (=least white, & most disadvantaged) precincts.
The % increase in '21 primary votes in Trump-won precincts this year, visible👆, surely reflects the statewide ballot referenda, which this year gave angry non-Democrat Pgh voters a reason to show up for a primary, which in Pgh they rarely have...
When we look look not at % increase over 4 ys before but at # increase (or decline), it becomes clear how a one-step-left shift of the turnout surge (which in Nov was centered in precincts where Trump got 20-40%, but last wk was strongest where Trump got 10-19%) helped Gainey
We can look at some basic demographics, drawing on 2010 census data (obvs there have been some shifts since then, esp in the two middle clusters here). Even in the cluster of whitest precincts, Gainey came close to winning (there was a huge spread within that cluster tho hold on)
Here's what total votes cast (not just % breakdown) looked like by precinct demographics. A reminder that the bulk of Pgh's population lives in very white precincts...
... & that those very white precincts are not all alike, even among registered Dems. Ed Gainey won 70+% of the vote in some, & barely 10% in others. In those latter, Tony Moreno got 50+% of Dem votes. Black Pgh neighborhoods in contrast were unified in their support for Gainey
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