the ticket collector: Pennsylvania in Recent Presidential Elections

Monday, July 4, 2016

Pennsylvania in Recent Presidential Elections

2012

Obama (D): 2,990,274 (51.97%)
Romney (R): 2,680,434 (46.59%)
Johnson (L}: 49,991 (0.87%)
Stein (G): 21,341(0.37%)

Obama decreased almost 300,000 votes from his 2008 total but still handily won the state. He got almost the same number of votes as Kerry in 2004, and Romney got almost exactly the same number of votes as McCain, besting his 2008 total by a mere 25,000 votes. It was thus down from Bush in 2004 by about 100,000. The biggest lesson to draw about this state is how much the result depends on turnout of the various bases. It has seemed reliably Democratic in recent years, but this has depended on the stability of the two political parties in their basic tone. The last Republican candidate to generate true excitement in the state was probably Reagan.. This election is certainly outside the paradigm and will likely shakeup the national electoral map in ways that will seem obvious to most people only in retrospect. The nature of Pennsylvania as a "swing state" is not that it is on the knife edge in any give election (it usually isn't), but rather when it does "swing" to the other side, it does so with great pendulum-like mass, portending deep shifts within the national political landscape.

(source) Results of the United States presidential election in Pennsylvania, 2012

2008

"marked the first time since 1972 that Pennsylvania was decided by a double-digit margin and was the strongest Democratic showing in the state since 1964."

Obama won in a blow out, getting more votes for president in the state than anyone in history. McCain slipped 100,000 votes from Bush's 2004 total, but would have lost big anyway, even if he had matched that total.

Obama (D): 3,276,363 (54.47%)

McCain (R): 2,655,885 (44.15%)
Nader (I): 42,977 (0.33%)
Barr (L): 19,912 (0.33%)

(source) Results of the United States presidential election in Pennsylvania, 2008

2004

"Kerry won the state with 50.9% of the vote, but won only 13 of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania. Most of these 13 counties have the highest populations in the commonwealth. The biggest key to Kerry's victory was winning the County of Philadelphia with 80% of the vote."

Kerry (D): 2,938,095 (50.92%)
Bush (R): 2,793,847 (48.42%)

County results in Pennsylvania for the 2004 United States presidential election.

2000

"Marginal wins in both of the state's metropolitan areas helped the Vice President to capture the state. This was the first election since 1968 that the candidate who won Pennsylvania did not win the general election, and only the fourth time that has happened since 1916."

Gore (D): 2,485,967 (50.60%)
Bush (R): 2,281,127 (46.43%)
Nader (G): 103,392 (2.10%)
Buchanan (Ref): 16,023 (0.33%)