Kamala Harris’ chances of securing a victory in Pennsylvania may hinge on winning over voters in the state’s deep suburbs, according to new analysis.
Pennsylvania, which has 19 electoral votes, is pivotal in securing victory in November. The state has voted for the overall winner in 48 out of 59 of the last elections.
Polls show that Harris and Donald Trump are virtually neck and neck in the state currently, with FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker putting the vice president just 0.1 point ahead. Pollster Nate Silver’s tracker has Harris 0.4 points ahead.
New data published by The Enquirer shows that the key to victory for Harris may lie in the deep suburbs, which have been trending blue for decades. Meanwhile, rural areas and some pockets of deep inner cities have moved toward Republicans, while postindustrial areas have flip-flopped between Democrats and Republicans.
According to The Enquirer, it is in the rural outer suburbs that Harris may find a new support base.
The rural outer suburbs have seen the most dramatic Democratic vote growth since 2016. In Bucks County, Democratic votes increased by 37,652 between 2016 and 2020, while Republican votes grew by 23,006.
In Chester County, Democratic votes surged by 40,690, compared to a smaller rise of 12,451 for Republicans. Similarly, in Delaware County, red votes expanded by 29,235, with GOP votes only increasing by 8,227.
In East Brandywine Township in Chester County, new housing developments on former farmland have propelled a political shift in the area, with President Joe Biden carrying the county comfortably in 2020 after Republican nominee Mitt Romney won the area in 2012.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, East Brandywine had a 44 percent population increase between 2010 and 2020, when nearly 900 new housing units were built. And while the township has remained majority white, the boom in East Brandywine’s population has seen its demographics shift, with the area’s non-white population grown —a demographic that traditionally votes Democrat. As of 2020, nearly 10 percent of the township’s population identified as Asian, a jump from about 2 percent in 2010.
Suburbs around smaller cities have also seen similar trends, prompting political shifts. In the Harrisburg metropolitan area, the population increased by roughly 12 percent between 2010 and 2020, with minimal shifts in its ethnic makeup. However, a greater portion of residents now have college degrees, a demographic that is trending towards the Democrats, and household incomes have climbed.
Harrisburg remained narrowly divided in national elections, and stayed shy of flipping Democratic. Additionally, Republicans still strongly outnumber Democrats in voter registration, 81,000 to 55,000.
“The suburban trend toward Democrats in the Philadelphia area is related to educational levels, as across the USA, many voters who have completed many years of university education have been trending toward Democratic support for several decades. Meanwhile Trump has had a lot of appeal among voters with fewer years of education, usually high school graduates without university degrees,” Robert Speel, an associate professor of political science at Penn State Behrend, told Newsweek.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll, conducted between October 7 and 10, found that 50 percent of likely voters in Pennsylvania without a degree supported Trump, while 45 percent supported Harris. Among voters with degrees, 57 percent supported Harris, while 37 percent supported Trump.
“At first, his appeal to such voters was mostly among white voters. But election results in 2020 and polls in 2024 have indicated that some less educated voters of other racial backgrounds are now also turning to Trump,” Speel added. However, he said that while the trend is nowhere near enough to cause the Republican to win in large cities, “it may offset suburban university-educated trends toward Harris.”
“However, Harris may also be able to put back together the coalition of university educated white voters and non-white voters of all educational backgrounds that helped Barack Obama win Pennsylvania and nationwide in two presidential elections.” he said.
But J. Wesley Leckrone, professor of political science at Widener University, told Newsweek that the election in Pennsylvania is so close that it will ultimately come down to who turns out to vote on November 5.
“It’s all about getting the vote out. I think it’s going to come down to the ground game, and whoever gets the most votes out on November 5 is going to be the one that wins,” he said. “I believe both campaigns are trying to convince people who may not vote, encouraging them to actually show up and cast their ballots.”
Leckrone said Harris is focusing her efforts on southeastern Pennsylvania, where here was a significant anti-Trump vote for Nikki Haley in the primaries. Nikki Haley won around 16 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania’s GOP primary, despite dropping out in March, exit polls showed.
“This was higher than in other areas of the state. This is likely why you’re seeing the Harris campaign concentrate in the Philadelphia suburbs, trying to convince soft or moderate Republicans who don’t particularly care for Trump to vote for her rather than write in a candidate or vote for a third party. A lot of attention is being spent on those wavering Republicans,” he said.
“Additionally, Trump is trying to win more support from minorities who would traditionally vote Democratic.” Analysis of the polls by Newsweek has indicated that both Hispanic voters and Black voters are shifting marginally towards the Republicans in this election.
But, for Speel, this election will ultimately come down to values. “Suburban areas have been trending blue and rural areas trending red in Pennsylvania and in many other states because most Americans don’t make voting decisions on an economic basis, even if they claim in polls that they do,” he said.
“Instead, most voters choose a party based on the values that party’s leaders represent and whether those values match more closely with the social and cultural attitudes of the voters,” Speel said.
“On many non-economic issues, Democrats have a lot more appeal than Republicans to suburban university-educated voters, and Republicans have a lot more appeal than Democrats to rural voters. These include issues like guns, religious views, social tolerance, abortion, and foreign relations.”
Newsweek has contacted the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment.
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