Politics of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is generally considered a swing state that leans slightly left. Throughout its entire history, it voted for the nationwide loser on only 10 occasions (1824, 1884, 1892, 1912, 1916, 1932, 1948, 1968, 2000, and 2004), meaning it has voted for the national winner 83% of the time as of 2020. Although, it generally supported Republicans between the Civil War and New Deal eras, as it voted Republican in every election between 1860 and 1932, except for 1912, when the Republican vote was split. Even then, the state's strong Republican ties meant that it backed Republican-turned-Progressive Theodore Roosevelt. The state backed a Democrat in 1936 for the first time since 1856. Pennsylvania generally leaned Democratic since the 1990s, as it backed the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1992 except in 2016, when it was won by Republican candidate Donald Trump with a plurality.^[1]

In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama won the state by a margin of over 10 percent, the largest victory seen in a presidential election in Pennsylvania since Richard Nixon's victory in 1972. In 2016, Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Pennsylvania since George H.W. Bush in 1988, winning by a margin of 0.7 percent. In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the state by 1.2 percent.

Pennsylvania has a split government as of June 2024, with the governor's office being held by a Democrat Josh Shapiro and the state house being controlled by the Democratic Party and the state senate being controlled by the Republican Party. Republicans control two statewide offices in Pennsylvania: Treasurer and Auditor General. In the United States Senate, Pennsylvania is represented by Democrats Bob Casey Jr. and John Fetterman. In the United States House of Representatives, Pennsylvania is represented by nine Democrats and eight Republicans.

Pennsylvania’s former Senator, Arlen Specter, announced in April 2009 that he was switching his party affiliation from Republican to Democratic, citing the Republicans' shift to the right since he was elected in 1980, though others suspected he switched because he would face a tough Republican primary election in 2010.^[2] As it turned out, he ended up losing the Democratic primary to Representative Joe Sestak. Congressman Sestak narrowly lost the general election to Pat Toomey in November 2010, returning the Senate seat to Republicans.

History

United States presidential election results for Pennsylvania^[3]
Year	Republican / Whig		Democratic		Third party
Year	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
2020	3,379,055	48.69%	3,461,221	49.87%	100,173	1.44%
2016	2,970,742	48.17%	2,926,458	47.45%	269,738	4.37%
2012	2,680,434	46.57%	2,990,274	51.95%	84,912	1.48%
2008	2,655,885	44.15%	3,276,363	54.47%	83,228	1.38%
2004	2,793,847	48.42%	2,938,095	50.92%	37,648	0.65%
2000	2,281,127	46.43%	2,485,967	50.60%	146,025	2.97%
1996	1,801,169	39.97%	2,215,819	49.17%	489,130	10.85%
1992	1,791,841	36.13%	2,239,164	45.15%	928,805	18.73%
1988	2,300,087	50.70%	2,194,944	48.39%	41,220	0.91%
1984	2,584,323	53.34%	2,228,131	45.99%	32,449	0.67%
1980	2,261,872	49.59%	1,937,540	42.48%	362,089	7.94%
1976	2,205,604	47.73%	2,328,677	50.40%	86,506	1.87%
1972	2,714,521	59.11%	1,796,951	39.13%	80,633	1.76%
1968	2,090,017	44.02%	2,259,405	47.59%	398,506	8.39%
1964	1,673,657	34.70%	3,130,954	64.92%	18,079	0.37%
1960	2,439,956	48.74%	2,556,282	51.06%	10,303	0.21%
1956	2,585,252	56.49%	1,981,769	43.30%	9,482	0.21%
1952	2,415,789	52.74%	2,146,269	46.85%	18,911	0.41%
1948	1,902,197	50.93%	1,752,426	46.92%	80,525	2.16%
1944	1,835,054	48.36%	1,940,479	51.14%	19,260	0.51%
1940	1,889,848	46.33%	2,171,035	53.23%	17,831	0.44%
1936	1,690,200	40.84%	2,353,987	56.88%	94,239	2.28%
1932	1,453,540	50.84%	1,295,948	45.33%	109,689	3.84%
1928	2,055,382	65.24%	1,067,586	33.89%	27,642	0.88%
1924	1,401,481	65.34%	409,192	19.08%	334,177	15.58%
1920	1,218,216	65.76%	503,843	27.20%	130,557	7.05%
1916	703,823	54.25%	521,784	40.22%	71,685	5.53%
1912	273,360	22.45%	395,637	32.49%	548,739	45.06%
1908	745,779	58.84%	448,782	35.41%	72,889	5.75%
1904	840,949	68.00%	337,998	27.33%	57,791	4.67%
1900	712,665	60.74%	424,232	36.16%	36,313	3.10%
1896	728,300	60.98%	433,228	36.27%	32,827	2.75%
1892	516,011	51.45%	452,264	45.09%	34,735	3.46%
1888	526,091	52.74%	446,633	44.77%	24,844	2.49%
1884	478,804	52.97%	392,785	43.46%	32,275	3.57%
1880	444,704	50.84%	407,428	46.57%	22,651	2.59%
1876	384,184	50.62%	366,204	48.25%	8,605	1.13%
1872	349,589	62.07%	212,041	37.65%	1,632	0.29%
1868	342,280	52.20%	313,382	47.80%	0	0.00%
1864	296,391	51.75%	276,316	48.25%	0	0.00%
1860	268,030	56.26%	16,765	3.52%	191,647	40.22%
1856	147,286	32.01%	230,686	50.13%	82,189	17.86%
1852	179,104	46.18%	198,562	51.20%	10,173	2.62%
1848	185,313	50.28%	171,976	46.66%	11,263	3.06%
1844	161,125	48.59%	167,447	50.50%	3,000	0.90%
1840	144,010	50.00%	143,676	49.88%	340	0.12%
1836	87,235	48.82%	91,457	51.18%	0	0.00%

Philadelphia is the Democratic stronghold of the state, often delivering huge margins for the Democrats in statewide elections. Other urban areas, such as Pittsburgh, Erie, Harrisburg, Allentown, and Scranton lean Democratic as well. Like most states, Pennsylvania's rural areas tend to be more conservative and support Republicans. The resulting political map of Pennsylvania is therefore a red "T" in the center of the state with the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas a strong blue. In more recent years, the traditionally Democratic-voting areas in southwestern Pennsylvania have become much more Republican, especially after 2004, similar to other coal country areas in West Virginia and Kentucky. By 2016, counties that once voted for John Kerry in 2004 in the counties surrounding Allegheny County supported Donald Trump by more than 60%. The true swing areas of the state are the suburbs of the large cities, notably Philadelphia's collar counties and the Pittsburgh suburbs.

On the state level, Pennsylvania has been a traditionally liberal Republican state, with a dominant state Republican Party that is much more oriented towards social spending than more conservative state Republican Parties in other regions of the United States. However, the recent Democratic trend in Pennsylvania has affected state politics, and the Democrats controlled the governor's mansion for all but four years since 2003 starting with the two terms under Governor Ed Rendell. After losing the governorship for four years to Tom Corbett from 2011 to 2015, Democratic Governor Tom Wolf defeated Corbett's re-election bid in 2014. Democrat Josh Shapiro succeeded him after the 2022 election, resulting in Democrats winning the governorship three times in a row for the first time since 1844.

On January 22, 2018, in League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania mandated that the state's congressional map be redrawn, finding that the current map was unconstitutionally drawn to favor Republicans and disenfranchise Democratic voters, a process known as gerrymandering. Less than one month later, a new congressional map was drawn and approved. The new map would take place in the May primaries.^[4] With the new congressional map in place, Democrats had a net gain of three congressional seats, giving the Democratic Party half of Pennsylvania's congressional seats. Also in the 2018 midterm elections, Governor Tom Wolf won reelection by a margin of 17 percent, Bob Casey Jr. was reelected to a third term in the U.S. Senate, John Fetterman unseated incumbent lieutenant governor Mike Stack, and the Republican Party maintained control of the state legislature.^[5]^[6]^[7]

Federal relations

During the Tom Ridge administration, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania maintained a permanent in-house lobbying office in Washington, D.C., to lobby the federal government of the United States.^[8] During the Ed Rendell administration, the Commonwealth closed that office and entered into a $720,000 annual contract with Blank Rome to lobby the federal government.^[8] The Rendell administration says that the contract with Blank Rome was $140,000 less per year than maintaining a permanent state office in Washington.^[8]