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Something similar happened in the other “blue wall” states of Michigan and Wisconsin, the Rust Belt, where Trump won again after losing in 2020.
Still, Democrats held on in key Senate races in Wisconsin and Michigan, albeit just barely, with the results playing out differently in each state.
Republican victories were most pronounced in Pennsylvania, a state that was early marked as the dominant swing state this year, where deep dissatisfaction with the status quo surfaced, mostly in favor of Republicans.
Voters had the economy on their minds.
Voters were in a bad mood
About a third of voters nationwide, including in blue-wall states, said they felt their families were “falling behind” financially, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide.
Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, said Democrats have a lot going against them among swing voters: their deteriorating personal finances, fueled by inflation, and a sense that many have blamed Biden.
“The mood of the electorate was so negative that they lashed out at the ruling party,” Yost said.
Some voters’ memories of Trump’s presidency have improved over time. VoteCast shows that only 40 percent of Pennsylvania voters said they approved of Biden’s job performance, while 54 percent said they approved of Trump while he was president. Four years ago, Trump’s approval rating in Pennsylvania was 49 percent.
In his victory over Harris, Trump won Pennsylvania by about two percent, and the votes are still being counted. That’s roughly three times his 2016 win. He lost Pennsylvania by just over one percentage point in 2020 to Biden.
Trump carried Wisconsin by less than a point, as he did in 2016, after losing by about half a percentage point in 2020.
In Michigan, Trump won by about 80,000 votes — many times his nearly 11,000-vote victory in 2016 and about half the margin of his 2020 loss to Biden.
In Pennsylvania, Trump gained ground in Democratic districts across the state, including the Democratic bastion of Philadelphia and densely populated suburbs that swung sharply against Trump in 2016 and 2020.
In Trump-friendly outlying and rural areas, his margins rose across the board.
His strength also helped David McCormick defeat three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, Republicans say, allowing them to regain the Senate seat the GOP lost in 2022 when Democrat John Fetterman replaced retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey .
In addition, the two-seat election changed the state’s congressional delegation from a 9-8 Democratic majority to a 10-7 Republican majority, giving the GOP a valuable boost in its fight to retain control of the House.
And for the first time since the attorney general’s office became an elective position in 1980, Republicans will hold all three statewide offices.
That includes the treasurer, auditor general and attorney general, a position that came into the spotlight four years ago when Trump sued to overturn his 2020 defeat.
Legislature seats remained largely unchanged: Republicans expected to retain their majority in the state Senate and hoped to overturn Democrats’ one-seat majority in the state House.
With more Republicans in the Capitol, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro — who was on Harris’ list of finalists for vice president — could be under more pressure to work on the other side.
Trump has visited Pennsylvania more than any other state and has often brought Republicans on stage.
Trump survived an assassination attempt in western Pennsylvania over the summer — then returned there for another rally — and drew a crowd to a McDonald’s in a politically divided Philadelphia suburb where he donned an apron and tried his hand at fries.
Trump campaigned in conservative white areas, heavily black Philadelphia and a fast-growing strip of Latino cities from Lancaster to Reading to Allentown, and AP VoteCast showed he benefited from modest swings among traditionally Democratic voters.
Across the country, and in Pennsylvania, clear majorities of black and Hispanic voters supported Harris, but slightly more supported Trump this year compared to four years ago.
“I told Donald Trump in 2015 when he asked ‘what do I have to do to win Pennsylvania,’ I said ‘he comes here a lot, the people of Pennsylvania like to meet their candidates,'” said Rob Gleason, who was the state GOP chairman at the time .
In Wisconsin and Michigan, Republicans gained, but not by much
Democrats had a much better night in Wisconsin than in other “blue wall” states, despite Trump’s victory.
Trump narrowed Democratic margins in counties around Milwaukee and Madison, and maintained or increased his margins in rural, suburban and other conservative areas.
“There were a lot of people who didn’t think we could do this,” said Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming.
“That blue brick in that blue wall is now red in Wisconsin.”
Still, Democrats were buoyed by the narrow victory of U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, and recently passed legislative maps drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers helped his party.
They achieved success in both the state Senate and the Assembly, reducing the Republican supermajority in the Senate to a simple majority.
In Michigan, Harris won Wayne County, which includes Detroit and suburbs with a large Arab-American population, but by a far narrower margin — about 90,000 votes — than Biden.
Meanwhile, Trump increased his margins by more than 55,000 votes in two other large suburban counties, Macomb and Oakland.
Democrat Elissa Slotkin narrowly won Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, but Democrats lost the House seat she vacated to run for the upper chamber.
Meanwhile, they lost their majority in the House of Representatives, ending a two-year streak in which the Democratic-controlled House passed new laws on gun safety, abortion rights and other top priorities.
In Pennsylvania, some Democrats said Harris should have chosen Shapiro as her running mate. Others suggested that Biden, who grew up in Pennsylvania and made it his presidential campaign, would have done better.
Former Gov. Ed Rendell questioned whether the Harris campaign had effectively responded to attacks in the nation’s No. 2 natural gas state that it would ban fracking. Two-thirds of Pennsylvania voters support expanding fracking, according to VoteCast.
Larry Maggi, the blue-collar Democratic commissioner of Washington County, just outside Pittsburgh, said Harris didn’t connect with people — especially men and especially young white people — the way Trump did.
“That bold speech, that rough speech, people love it,” Maggi said. – It echoed.
A Marine Corps veteran, Maggi recalled chatting over beer at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall with a friend wearing a red MAGA hat.
Maggi asked him why he likes Trump.
“Because he tells it like it is,” replied the friend.
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