What do Tuesday’s results tell us about political change in Pennsylvania? A thread.
Dem party decline in rural & rust belt PA has been 30 ys in the making.
Tuesday did not show voters in Washington, Beaver, etc “moving right” per se: it showed voters’ longtime move away from Dems at top of the ticket (which spread downballot over 30ys, first to senate & congress, then to state reps) finally hitting the last of county offices as well 
Meanwhile in PA’s upscale suburbs—esp. visible around Philly—a parallel process is underway at a far faster pace: top-of-ticket rejection of Trump in Romney-Clinton suburbs in 2016-> rejection of GOP congressmen in 2018 -> full flips of county govt in 2019
[whoops gotta get a kid to school. back soon!]
Historic Democratic Party strength in rust belt and rural PA was grounded in allegiances forged on shop floors & strike votes & immigrant parishes & New Deal bargains (here's a great short essay that captures that arc) feature.politicalresearch.org/trump-and-west…
County-level Democratic Party machines in places like Beaver, Washington, Fayette, & yes Allegheny County (eg Pittsburgh) depended on & amplified the votes & voices of white ethnic voters whose identifications can't be understood as simply L or R: you need @leedrutman's quadrant
@leedrutman One key takeaway statewide from Tuesday's vote is that *that* version of PA Dem local party machines has finished its long stumblng collapse. There just aren't enough of its (aging, shrinking) voting base left, & those who are left aren't voting Dem anywhere on the ballot anymore
@leedrutman The final crumbling of the old Dem party/old Dem voter bond is the story told by countywide office losses (inc. DAs & commissions) in Westmoreland, Washington, Luzerne, Indiana...
But the consequences aren't simple L vs R. Because it's that same crumbling of the old Dem machines that's reflected in the victories of more progressive challengers in key cities: like Paige Cognetti in Scranton wnep.com/2019/11/05/pai…
and Kendra Brooks in Philly
& the reformist challenge by Lisa Middleman here. Donald Trump got 40% of the vote in Allegheny Cnty. Incumbent DA Zappala (on D&R ticket) only outperformed him by 17pts. Is 46,000 votes the max the Allegheny Cty Dem establishmnt can sway in the year 2019? inquirer.com/news/pennsylva…
In places like Philly, new coalitions are emerging in which energized upscale progressives partner with communities & activists who have been shut out from the Dem establishment-dominated party for too long
In places like Beaver Cnty you also have folks on the ground trying to build new coalitions to remake the local party for a new era. But it's hard: there are starkly different eras/visions of Democratic priorities there, plus decades of erosion to overcome
Meanwhile, just as the loss of downballot votes in WPA from folks who've been voting GOP top-of-ticket for decades doesn't reflect ideological change rightward per se, the rise in Dem votes for county offices (not just pres now) in the Philly collar is not necessarly a shift Left
The speed w which Bucks Delco Chester Lehigh etc flipped doesn't reflect a sudden mass change of heart on marginal tax rates & zoning. It was voters' refusal to identify w Trump GOP *PLUS* intense local grassroots labor poured into build viable alternative americancommunities.org/in-pennsylvani…
While it's in the Philly collar that the new Dem building was widespread enough to flip county control, the same pattern is visible across the state in places that look like urban suburbs, exurbs & college towns (to use @AmCommPro's very helpful taxonomy)
@AmCommPro So eg within Allegheny County, Dems flipped nearly a dozen seats on borough councils & school boards in northern & southern suburbs that were solid and uncontested GOP terrain before 2017, & flipped one suburban county council seat & came close in another
@AmCommPro And the new grassroots & political changes they are catalyzing are not limited to circum-metro counties, though they are thickest on the ground there. In research w/ Theda Skocpol & Caroline Tervo, we identified post-2016 grassroots groups in all but a dozen of PA's 67 counties
@AmCommPro (hey it's my soundcloud! this book is coming out in December with a tiny contribution from me plus lots more from many brilliant people, & *tons* of Pennsylvania content. The stocking stuffer you've been waiting for??) global.oup.com/academic/produ…
@AmCommPro We tend to speak of counties (or states!) as red or blue. But American political space isn't uniform: it's fractal. Zoom in close enough & even a rural county like Lycoming, where Clinton got 27% of the vote, reveals town centers with more diversity, higher education: & Democrats
@AmCommPro And if we dip even further downballot than the county level, we discover hard-won local victories this week in unexpected places. In Trump+18 Cumberland County, the Carlisle borough council is now all Dem, for the first time cumberlink.com/news/local/com…
@AmCommPro In Meadville PA, in Trump+37 Crawford County, Dems flipped two city council seats yourerie.com/news/your-loca…
@AmCommPro In Trump+19 Lancaster County, Dems flipped control of the Manheim Township Board for the first time ever...
... because Jess King's campaign for congress in a Trump +26 district in 2018 was the kind of campaign that builds leaders & lays track for the next
And in Trump+44 Lycoming County, the city of Williamsport elected a Democratic mayor for the first time since 1987: Derek Slaughter, city council member & math teacher & the city's first African American mayor wnep.com/2019/11/06/sla…
Strikngly these stories are not coming fr the once-industrial Dem strongholds where the party’s county-level presence just finished collapsing (red in @jeffditzler’s map). They're coming from long-Republican areas with a rural past & non-homogenous present. & future to be written
@JeffDitzler Berks is an Obama-Romney-Trump county. On Tues. Eddie Moran was elected: the first Latino mayor of Reading, a city that is 65% Latino. The face of Dem elected leaders in PA is changing in cities large & small, sometimes smoothly & sometimes by challenge wfmz.com/news/area/berk…
@JeffDitzler This map from @JMilesColeman is my screensaver (I am that absurd). Note blue flecks scattered widely. Voters in those very small cities have moved decisvely Dem-ward in the era of Trump. Where local activists new&old have joined to build new coalitions, they are winning elections
@JeffDitzler @JMilesColeman Anyone claiming Tuesday shows a Blue Wave ahead bc Philly collar populations are growing & WPA isnt needs to take a hard look @ this. Only 1/3 of PA's pop lives in Urban Suburb or Exurban counties. Trends in Middle Suburb & Rural Mid America regions really matter. & they're mixed
@JeffDitzler @JMilesColeman Gotta run off to my day job & inbox. For more thoughts on PA politics (shorter Lara Putnam: The Future is Nurses) go read @StephenJ_Caruso penncapital-star.com/government-pol…
@JeffDitzler @JMilesColeman @StephenJ_Caruso Ah! & if you care enough about PA politics to have read this far down & haven't yet read these 2 brilliant books, drop everything & read. @elizagriswold _Amity & Prosperity_ shows fracking's impact in SWPA (& one tireless nurse/mom's struggles to be heard) us.macmillan.com/books/97803741…
@JeffDitzler @JMilesColeman @StephenJ_Caruso @elizagriswold & @JenSilva422 Anyone who sees "mobilize nonvoters!" as a route to Dem victory needs to read this. Real work to engage those marginalzed by our current system is an ethical imperative. That doesn't mean it will win Dems votes anytime soon, or maybe at all global.oup.com/academic/produ…
@JeffDitzler @JMilesColeman @StephenJ_Caruso @elizagriswold @JenSilva422 omg lol this just in from my son
