The Pennsylvania Swing

PENNSYLVANIA HAS ALL EYES on it and some have microscopes attached. It is considered to be the most important swing state ever since Hillary Clinton lost it in 2016. Till then it was safely within the Democratic ramparts but after Donald Trump wrested it, Pennsylvania gained in prominence as uncertain territory. Now, every tiny county (district) in this state is minutely studied.

Pennsylvania’s centrality is based on a logic that borders on superstition. It has only 19 electors, which is high but below California and New York, equal to Illinois. Even so, as Democrats lost there for the first time in 2016 and also the presidency, Pennsylvania attained magical properties. That’s why Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, is near permanently parked there.

Like other states, Pennsylvania is a mixed bag. The prosperous urban areas vote Democrat, but in the rural areas, it is Republican. This is in line with the popular story. What spoils it is that the highly urbanised sections of the inner cities of this state are Republican too. Clearly Walz, while campaigning, will have to live in a trailer home and keep moving all the time.

Walz had better get ready to move to other states too. It is not as if only Pennsylvania’s outcome is uncertain. Georgia, Arizona and Florida are also swing states but have not been stargazed as much. Florida has 30 electors, more than Pennsylvania’s 19, and for 20 years the two parties have won and lost here by razor-thin margins. Every time the cut was deep, spilling pools of bad blood.

In Pennsylvania and Illinois, the newly emergent suburban areas are known locally as “collar counties” for these ring the metropolitan centres. The retroactive wisdom is that Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania for she ignored these regions which are predominantly white and middle class. So, if Walz is stationed there, he certainly isn’t aspiring for minority votes.

How rational is it then for commentators and for the person on the street to be obsessed with Pennsylvania? In India, Uttar Pradesh (UP) matters most simply because of its sheer population size. It is also a ‘swing’ state as the last election showed. American psephologists, however, are not guessing about California and New York. These, the two most populous states, are unshakeably Democratic.

Given the large number of swing states, the election outcome will remain a cliff-hanger till the end. Kamala Harris, undoubtedly, won the debate against Trump, but has it really changed people’s minds? In Pennsylvania again, Trump flags are in as many numbers as before. In the collar county of Perkasie, where Joe Biden won last by just 67 votes, Walz is probably going door to door.

Apart from the mysterious fascination with Pennsylvania, American barstool philosophers also chime with TV anchors about the rural-urban divide. It is a tasty matchup to link urban and rural votes to Democrats and Republicans, but here again, a large part is an add-on over an uncertain crumbly base. Democrats like to believe this makes them look superior and cultured.

That is a big part of Kamala’s problem. Trump’s caricature of Democrats as snobby, college people who need to be put in their place sounds messianic to many of his believers. However, Florida, which is a swing state, is highly urban. Michigan and Kansas have an identical urban profile but the former alone votes Democrat. Utah is Republican but more urban than Democratic New Mexico.

The reason why this rural-urban divide in voting patterns sounds convincing is because New York and California are very urban and always Democratic. Conversely, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Wyoming have comparatively low urbanisation and have always been Republican. This is the belt that goes by the moniker “the redneck Midwest”.

It is the extremes—the urbanised coastal areas and the rural Midwest—that allow for this popular imagery. It is also suggested that Trump wins on white American support. But recent surveys show that many Latinos and Asians also believe with Trump that abortions are bad and now that they are safely in the US, other immigrants are bad too.

India, like America, defies quick summaries. UP is India’s most populous state but unlike California, which is the US’ largest, its electoral outcomes are not always certain, as we saw in our last election. It helps then to study India cross-culturally for, to paraphrase a popular saying, “What do they know of India, who only India know?”

About The Author

Dipankar Gupta