Itās most heartening to see the support from Space Cadet Johnson going to Clintonā¦ inferred obviously.
@mymyā¦ better?
Sad to use Zappaās childās name to characterize Johnson. Heās unworthy.
Before us Pennsylvanians start counting chickens, please read this article from Politico that details just how awful the PA GOP could make this election for our voters.
I donāt understand how HRC is doing so much worse in OH than PA. Can the demographics of these two adjacent swing states have diverged that much? It seems to me theyāve always been somewhat similar with respect to red:blue tendencies on a given election.
Good question. But Pennsylvaniaās been fairly reliably blue in recent presidential years; Ohioās been a tossup. But this does seem to be a spread thatās hard to understand.
But this still means PA is a toss up? Like the Donald could still win here right? 
The perennial mystery for me is Vermont vs New Hampshire
OH doesnāt have a Philadelphia & vicinity.
Color me confusedā¦ When presented with just two choices, 36% choose Trump. But when four choices are presented, he picks up 38%? As if there were respondents who thought there were more choices coming, but when given Johnson and Stein decided to go for Trump afterall?
(Donāt get me wrong, Iām confused how any rational human being with an IQ above 50 would choose Trump, but letās leave that aside for the momentā¦)
Philly and Pittsburgh are much larger than Cleveland and Cincy?
Seems superficial-- but possibly accurate.
jw1
Yet another example how much mid-term elections matterā¦ glad we booted Corbett.
Ohio has a number of medium sized old industrial (rust belt) cities like Akron, Dayton, Toldedo. Union in the old days, then āReagan Democratā, --at least the White population.
Though a closer look at Top 10 cities by population in each-- gives PA about a 500k edge in urban voters-- particularly in Philly-- where itsā 1.5M dwarfs Columbus at 700k. And Columbus is also a college town.
jw1
I heard either Jim Messina or David Plouffe in a podcast the other day say that 1 in every 5 voters of PA is African American, so when Trump is polling at < 5% with African Americans you can see the almost impossible margins he has to win with whites to make up the difference. And when heās turning off white women in huge numbers with his misogyny, you can put the state to bed. Much stronger and better organized GOP candidates like Romney and Dubya have poured tons of resources into PA trying to flip it and still handily lose, so I dont know why the media still convince themselves that Trump had a chance.
Iām somewhat baffled by OH myself. I know there are a lot of white high school educated males that make it Trump friendly, I just donāt know when they became such the predominate demographic in the state over the past 4-8 years. Seems to be trending a lot like Missouri. Are educated whites leaving? I live in Florida, and I notice a lot of affluent baby boomers from Ohio have recently cashed out their nest eggs and moved to Florida to retire. I dunno, Iām still skeptical of the public pollsters after 2012 and their tendency to overweight white voters in the electorate. I still havenāt forgotten Gallup showing Romney winning the entire home stretch and Suffolk pulling their polls out of Florida and Virginia because Obama didnāt have a chance.
There might be some issues in Pittsburgh, but in Philadelphia, they could not pull off the intimidation routine. As the article states, there are procedures in place for checks and balances. Signatures have to match the name, and once the signature is there, there are no do overs. Not to mention each name is assigned a number, they go in sequence. They will be standing out like a bump on a log. People from the neighborhoods will have each otherās backs. Municipal courts are open during voting hours. The Committee of Seventy takes calls on irregularities.
And I donāt think the suburban counties will allow any intimidation efforts either. These are the kind of people who wonāt have their voting rights trampled on.
I āvolunteeredā to be one of these guys to block voters, to see how they would respond. Theyāve been calling every couple of days nowā¦
A sidebar-- about 10 weeks back-- and Iād bet this still holds true-- Nate Silver stated that unless Trump wins PA-- his other EV route(s) give him only a 1.6% chance of winning.
PA is The Keystone State.
jw1
Yes ā and (I posted this in another thread as well), I also expect the campaign will have an Obama-campaign-like voters right protection program in place. There is some uncertainty and unpredictability for sure because of the way Trump has been inciting his worshipers, but of course what he encourages is illegal. I worry there may be some unhinged Trumpkins harassing minority voters, but also trust most of such crimes will be taken care of.
We are not counting chickens ā just keeping faith, and keeping working till itās over.
Pittsburgh has turned into a very nice firewall for Democrats as itās transitioned well in the post Industrial economy, better than most of the larger larger cities in the Rust Belt, with a higher college educated population compared to the rest of the state (Carnegie Mellon ,etc). Iām not sure anything equivalent to that in Ohio. They have OSU Colombus with ~780k compared to ~2.3 million in the greater Pittsburgh Metro.