We
come now to southeastern Pennsylvania, the state’s portion of the Northeastern
megalopolis stretching from Washington to Boston. Traditionally, it is defined as the city of
Philadelphia (which, since the 1850s, has been the same thing as Philadelphia
County) and the nearby counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery.
About four million people live here (almost one-third of the state’s
population), making it the most populous of Pennsylvania’s regions, but it is
by far the smallest in land area.
Demographically
and geographically, SEPA can be broken down into four areas:
· The
“Main Line” originally referred to the wealthy towns along the Pennsylvania
Railroad immediately west of Philadelphia, from Lower Merion at the southern
tip of Montgomery County, through northern Delaware County, into eastern and
central Chester County. I use the term Greater
Main Line to describe affluent neighborhoods in and around Philadelphia, an
area that includes central Bucks County, central and southern Montgomery
County, most of Chester and Delaware counties, and much of Northwest
(particularly Manayunk and Chestnut Hill) and Center City Philadelphia. This is the most affluent and well-educated
part of the state, and like affluent suburbs throughout the country, it has
been getting more Democratic since the 1990s, a trend that accelerated with the
rise of Donald Trump. It is
predominantly white but increasingly diverse.
·
There
are some white working-class neighborhoods in and around Philadelphia that
deserve mentioning. I call them the
700 level, after the cheap seats at Veterans’ Stadium, the home of the
Phillies and Eagles from 1971-2003, where much of the current sterling
reputation of Philadelphia sports fans originated. This area includes parts of southern Delaware
County, particularly around Marcus Hook and Tinicum Township, south and
northeast Philadelphia, and lower Bucks County.
Fishtown, the Philadelphia neighborhood Charles Murray used as a metonymy
for white working-class areas throughout the country, is in this area
(although, ironically, it’s starting to become gentrified). These areas were trending Democratic during
the 1990s and 2000s, but Republicans have become more successful here in recent
years. After Barack Obama carried all of
Philadelphia’s sixty-six wards in 2008 and 2012, Donald Trump carried the
sixty-sixth ward in Northeast Philadelphia and the twenty-sixth ward in South
Philadelphia (another ward, the fifty-eighth in Northeast Philadelphia, split
its ticket, voting for Pat Toomey and Hillary Clinton).
·
There
are a number of minority strongholds in and around Philadelphia. The city itself is majority-minority, with a
population around forty percent black and fifteen percent Hispanic. The city’s black population is concentrated
in west and north Philadelphia, while its largest Hispanic neighborhood is in
the near northeast. There are other
predominantly minority areas around the cities of Chester, Norristown, and
Coatesville; eastern Delaware County; near Lincoln University, one of the
nation’s oldest historically black colleges; and in areas of southern Chester
County where the agricultural industry has attracted Mexican immigrants. Like majority-minority areas throughout the
country, these areas tend to vote Democratic.
·
Finally,
there are a few rural redoubts left in the northern and western areas of
Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties where the hilly terrain and distance
from Philadelphia has inhibited settlement.
These areas are heavily Republican, even more so with Donald Trump on
the ticket, but thinly populated.
They’ll probably see more development and population growth in the
future, but as they do, their demographics will start to resemble the Greater Main
Line.
Southeast
Pennsylvania Political History and Trends
Philadelphia
has always been the largest city in Pennsylvania, and as such, it has
traditionally been a major center of power.
Between the Civil War and the New Deal, when Pennsylvania was a reliably
Republican state, Philadelphia was under the control of a Republican
machine. Philadelphia voted for Franklin
Roosevelt in 1936, 1940, and 1944, and for Harry Truman in 1948, but the
Democrats did not seize control of the local government until 1951. That year,
a home rule charter for the city took effect, and Joe Clark was elected the
first Democratic mayor since 1884. The Democratic margin of victory in
Philadelphia grew dramatically, from around 7,000 votes for Harry Truman in
1948 to 160,000 votes for Adlai Stevenson in 1952; in fact, if Philadelphia and
the four collar counties were their own state, it would have flipped from
Thomas Dewey to Stevenson. Recall
that 1952 was the year Pennsylvania began voting more Democratic than the rest of
the nation in Presidential elections; the shift in Philadelphia is a major reason
why
The
careers of two prominent U.S. Senators can be considered the last hurrah of Philadelphia
Republicans. Hugh Scott, a
Republican Congressman from northwest Philadelphia, was elected to the Senate
in 1958, defying that year’s Democratic wave, and served until 1976, rising to
Minority Leader. Arlen Specter was elected in 1980 in an
election that broke along regional lines.
Specter’s Democratic opponent was Pete Flaherty, a former mayor of
Pittsburgh. Most western Pennsylvania
counties, even usually Republican ones, went for Flaherty, while the city of
Philadelphia went for Specter, the last time it has voted Republican for a
major office.
However,
the suburbs remained staunchly Republican from the 1950s into the 1980s,
particularly in Chester and Montgomery counties. This, combined with a split among city
Democrats between blue-collar whites and progressives and minorities, hurt the
ability of Philadelphia politicians to compete statewide. Joe Clark was elected to the U.S. Senate in
1956 and 1962, but was voted out in 1968, even as Hubert Humphrey carried the state,
in favor of Richard Schweiker, a congressman from Montgomery County. He would be the last mayor of Philadelphia
elected to statewide office in the twentieth century; his successor, Richardson
Dilworth, ran for governor twice unsuccessfully.
While
this was going on, as in urban areas throughout the country, the suburbs were
growing while the city proper was shrinking.
In 1950, Philadelphia’s population outnumbered the collar counties by
almost two-to-one; by 1980, the collar counties had more people than the city. This made Philadelphia less effective as a base
for the Democrats; although the five-county region as a whole had, since 1951,
only voted Republican in the landslides of 1956 and 1972, Ronald Reagan carried
it both times.
In
the 199os, everything changed. The
suburban counties became steadily more Democratic, culminating in the 2008
election, when Barack Obama carried all four by a wider margin than he carried
the national popular vote. The bottom
fell out completely for Republicans in Philadelphia, as the city went from
about thirty points more Democratic than the national popular vote to about
sixty points more Democratic than the national popular vote. This trend seemed to be leveling off in the
Obama years: Chester County flipped to support Mitt Romney in 2012, and Bucks
County almost followed suit, but it resumed in the 2016 election. Bucks County is replacing
Chester County as the most Republican-friendly suburban county.
In
the first election for governor of the twenty-first century, the pattern of Philadelphia
politicians, particularly those closely associated with the city’s government,
faring poorly in statewide elections had a dramatic exception. Ed Rendell,
who served as Philadelphia mayor in the 1990s, ran for governor in 2002 and was
initially considered the underdog against then-Auditor General Bob Casey
Jr. However, under Rendell’s tenure,
Philadelphia, like many American cities at the time, experienced a dramatic
drop in crime and an economic revival, making Rendell wildly popular in
southeastern Pennsylvania. Rendell
won the primary handily, by a 57-43% margin, despite only carrying ten of the
state’s sixty-seven counties. He carried
all of the southeastern counties with at least seventy-five percent of the
vote, doing even better in the collar counties than in Philadelphia proper. No Philadelphia mayor since Rendell has
been able to match his popularity, or has expressed much of an interest in
running for statewide office. Recently,
Philadelphia Democrats have taken a more progressive turn, led by Jim Kenney
and Larry Krasner, the current mayor and district attorney, respectively, of Philadelphia. It remains to be seen how this new breed of
Philadelphia politician will play statewide (or even in the parts of Philadelphia
that swung toward Trump), but the increasing liberalism of the suburbs might
give them an opening.
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