Republicans won historic gains in Pennsylvania this week, gaining the battleground state’s important presidential electoral votes, adding two seats to its U.S. House delegation, and sweeping all four statewide offices on the ballot, including a U.S. Senate seat.
The strong performance means Donald Trump has won Pennsylvania in two of three attempts, after Republicans had lost six consecutive presidential elections there.
Similar events occurred in the other “blue wall” states of Michigan and Wisconsin, Rust Belt states that Trump won again after losing in 2020. Still, Democrats narrowly won important Senate battles in Wisconsin and Michigan, and the results differed by state.
Republican successes were most obvious in Pennsylvania, which was seen early on as this year’s most important swing state, where profound dissatisfaction with the existing quo erupted, often to Republicans’ advantage.
The issues that determined the 2024 election
The percentage of voters who indicated each issue was the most important facing the country in 2024, as compared to 2020. Voters were focused on the economy.
The voters had a sour temper.
According to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationally, about one-third of respondents, including those in blue wall states, reported that their families were “falling behind” financially. That was an increase from 2020, when roughly two in ten felt this way. In 2020, the majority of economically disadvantaged Americans voted for President Joe Biden, but this year, over two-thirds supported Trump.
Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, said Democrats faced several challenges among swing voters, including declining personal finances caused by inflation and the perception that many blamed Biden.
Yost stated that Vice President Kamala Harris had a solid campaign but was unable to overcome the headwinds.
“The mood of the electorate was so negative, they took it out on the incumbent party,” observed Yost.
Some voters’ memories of Trump’s administration improved over time. According to VoteCast, only 40% of Pennsylvania voters approve of Biden’s job performance, compared to 54% who approved of Trump while he was president. Four years ago, Trump’s approval rating in Pennsylvania was 49%.
Trump defeated Harris by approximately 2% in Pennsylvania, with votes still being tabulated. This was over three times the margin of his 2016 victory. In 2020, he lost Pennsylvania to Biden by slightly more than one percent.
Trump won Wisconsin by less than a point, as he did in 2016, but lost it by around a half point in 2020.
In Michigan, Trump won by almost 80,000 votes, more than doubling his nearly 11,000-vote victory in 2016 and roughly halving the margin of his loss to Biden.
In Pennsylvania, Trump gained ground in Democratic-friendly counties across the state, including the Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia and densely populated suburbs that voted decisively against Trump in 2016 and 2020.
In Trump-friendly exurbs and rural communities, his margins increased across the board.
How Pennsylvania voters shifted between elections.
According to Republicans, David McCormick’s success also helped him defeat three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, allowing the GOP to recapture the Senate seat they lost in 2022 when Democrat John Fetterman succeeded retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.
In addition, a two-seat pickup altered the state’s congressional delegation from 9-8 in favor of Democrats to a 10-7 Republican advantage, giving the GOP a significant assist in its bid to retain House control.
For the first time since the state attorney general’s office became an elected position in 1980, Republicans will control all three statewide row positions.
That includes the positions of treasurer, auditor general, and attorney general, which were brought to public attention four years ago when Trump tried to overturn his 2020 defeat.
Legislative majorities remained unchanged: Republicans retained their six-seat state Senate majority, while Democrats maintained their one-seat state House majority.
With more Republicans in the Capitol, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was on Harris’ list of vice presidential candidates, may face increased pressure to work across the aisle.
Trump paid the most visits to Pennsylvania and frequently invited downballot Republicans to appear on stage.
Trump escaped an assassination attempt in western Pennsylvania over the summer and returned there for a second rally. He also drew a crowd to a McDonald’s in a politically divided Philadelphia suburb, where he donned an apron and tried his hand at the French fry station.
Trump campaigned in conservative white neighborhoods, predominantly Black Philadelphia, and a fast-growing belt of communities from Lancaster to Reading to Allentown where Latinos are moving, and AP VoteCast data showed that he benefited from small movements among normally Democratic voters.
Across the country, especially in Pennsylvania, clear majority of Black and Latino voters favored Harris, while somewhat more backed Trump this year than four years prior.
“I told Donald Trump in 2015, when he asked ‘what do I have to do to win Pennsylvania,’ I said, ‘come here a lot, Pennsylvanians like to know their candidates,'” said Rob Gleason, the state GOP chairman at the time.
In Wisconsin and Michigan, Republicans gained, but not by much.
Democrats fared far better in Wisconsin than in the other “blue wall” states, despite Trump’s win.
Trump reduced Democratic margins in the counties surrounding Milwaukee and Madison, while maintaining or increasing his margins in rural, suburban, and other conservative areas.
How Wisconsin voters shifted between elections.
“There were a lot of people who didn’t think we could do this,” said Wisconsin Republican Party chair Brian Schimming. “That blue brick in that blue wall is now red in Wisconsin.”
Nonetheless, Democrats were encouraged by U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin’s tight victory, and newly passed legislative maps created by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers aided his party.
They won wins in both the state Senate and the Assembly, reducing the Republican Senate supermajority to a simple majority.
In Michigan, Harris won Wayne County, which includes Detroit and suburbs with large Arab American communities, by a much smaller margin — around 90,000 votes — than Biden. Meanwhile, Trump increased his lead by over 55,000 votes in two other major suburban counties, Macomb and Oakland.
How voters in Michigan shifted between elections
Democrat Elissa Slotkin barely won Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, but Democrats lost the House seat she gave up to fight for the upper house.
Meanwhile, they lost their state House majority, capping a two-year period in which a Democratic-controlled statehouse passed new legislation on gun safety, abortion rights, and other priority priorities.
Republicans think Trump’s support for early voting and emphasis on inflation and immigration were helpful.
In Pennsylvania, some Democrats believed Harris should have chosen Shapiro as her running mate. Others thought that Biden, who grew up in Pennsylvania and made it his presidential campaign headquarters, would have performed better.
Former Gov. Ed Rendell questioned whether Harris’ team adequately reacted to criticism in the nation’s second-largest natural gas state that she would restrict fracking. VoteCast reports that two-thirds of Pennsylvania voters support increased fracking.
Larry Maggi, a Democratic county commissioner in blue-collar Washington County, just outside Pittsburgh, said Harris failed to connect with people — particularly men and young white men — in the same way that Trump did.
“That bravado talk, that tough talk, people like that,” Maggi told me. “It resonated.”
Maggi, a Marine Corps veteran, recounted talking over a beer in a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall with a friend wearing a red MAGA cap.
Maggi questioned why he favors Trump.
“Because he tells it how it is,” the friend said.
