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MIDDLETOWN, Pennsylvania – Sandy Sinkovich, a retired radiology technician, was a registered Republican until she changed party during the Obama years. She plans to vote for a Democratic right ticket midway through. President Trump, she said, has "done nothing but destroy our country".
Dave Sweeney, who runs juice machines, is registered as a Republican in 2016 after being a Democrat for years so he could vote for Mr. Trump at the elementary level. He worries about the caravan of migrants and plans to vote Republican.
"No, I'm not racist if I think you should work for social welfare, you should work for food stamps," Sweeney said.
Few states have more reflected Trump's political allegiances than Pennsylvania, the most populous of the three Rust Belt factions, claiming that Trump was overthrown in 2016. In Along the way, the Republicans won 13 of the 18 seats in Pennsylvania.
Two years later, the wheel turns again. Due to the weakness of Republican candidates at the helm of the state and redesigned congressional districts, Democrats are well positioned to gain, perhaps significant, gains in Pennsylvania, including three or more women who could crush the delegation. of the House, composed only of men.
The shooting of 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday divided Pennsylvanians, like Americans, about whether President Trump's heated speech on immigration fueled the violence. But in an election season where partisan attitudes were already well established, it is unclear whether shooting would affect many votes. Congressional races around Pittsburgh are more sedentary than those organized in other regions.
"I think it's not primarily a political issue, and I do not think voters see it as a political issue," said Mark Harris, a Republican strategist based in Pittsburgh. "I know everyone is so outraged by what happened. it does not matter whether you are Republican or Democrat. "
This price is still far, and by no means assured. A group of highly competitive districts of the House that, on election day, could be the harbinger of the battle for control of the House nationwide is a more immediate concern.
Democrats are expected to occupy at least two seats at Pennsylvania House – and, in an explosion, up to six – which would move the party toward the 23 hires needed for a congressional majority.
The problems of the Republicans begin with the failure of the candidacy of the candidates for the positions of governor and senate and arouse a broad appeal to the moderate voters. The incumbent Democrats, Governor Tom Wolf and Senator Bob Casey Jr., have been conducting double-digit polls since the spring.
The two competitors failed to raise a lot of money or become competitive enough to attract outside expenses.
Republican Party leaders in Pennsylvania openly fear that their mediocre candidates across the state will reduce voter turnout, which will have significant consequences for Congressional races and perhaps even the size of the races. Republican majorities at the Harrisburg General Assembly.
"There is a lot of collateral damage that could result from the fact that the top of the ticket is very small," said Harris, the Republican strategist.
The hardest blow, however, was obtained when the Supreme Court of a Democratic-majority state released a Germanmanaged Republican map early this year.
The new map prepared by the court more closely reflects the partisan balance of the state. The Democrats are expected to largely overthrow two previously occupied Republican seats in suburban Philadelphia. The two women candidates are Mary Gay Scanlon, a lawyer in the Fifth District, and Chrissy Houlahan, an Air Force veteran competing in the Sixth District.
In addition, Madeleine Dean, the state representative, is the Democratic candidate in the newly established Fourth District, also located in a suburb and an open seat. A large part was previously represented by a democrat.
"The fourth, fifth and sixth become democratic, end quote," said G. Terry Madonna, a leading political scientist Franklin & Marshall Pennsylvania Poll.
Another potentially democratic country, and a fourth woman that the state could send to Congress, is the seventh district, located in the Lehigh Valley. Susan Wild, a former Allentown city manager, is doing well in polls against former Olympian Marty Nothstein.
Republicans are not without prospects. Another race in suburban Philadelphia is rookie representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican and former F.B.I. agent, against Scott Wallace, a rich philanthropist.
The district is centered on Bucks County, a vibrant region that Hillary Clinton and Republican Senator Pat Toomey won in 2016. Fitzpatrick has garnered support from the AFL.L.-C.I.O. and gun control groups. His campaign posters boast that he is "the most ranked of the most independent members of the Freshman congress".
But the most controversial congressional race in recent days is in the 10th congressional district in south-central Pennsylvania, where conservative Republican Representative Scott Perry is suddenly found in rough waters.
Mr. Perry is a member of the right caucus, Freedom, in the House. It was redrawn from a district where Mr. Trump won by 21 points in a single president by nine, and hardly attracted independent voters. A poll by the New York Times Upshot / Siena College showed him that his rival, George Scott, was a Lutheran minister.
"It's much closer than anyone thought, and much more than it should be," said Charlie Gerow, Republican strategist living in the district.
Here, as elsewhere, many voters see the vote as a referendum on Mr. Trump.
Jessica Kolaric, 46, who works with patients with dementia, said that she did not know much about one or the other of the congressional candidates, but that She was considering voting for Mr. Scott, the Democrat. "Someone must hold Trump accountable and put it in check," she said.
Mr Trump's 44,000-vote victory in Pennsylvania, as elsewhere in the Rust Belt, is the result of an unanticipated surge of blue-collar voters, who have swamped the votes of graduating voters. University in the suburbs.
After further analysis, Mr. Lamb's victory is due in large part to the fact that he galvanized the voters of the suburbs outside Pittsburgh.
Lamb has been redistributed to a seat where he is now facing a Republican President, Keith Rothfus. In September, the National Republican Congress committee canceled his publicity in favor of Mr. Rothfus, a sign that the national party believes his chances are slim.
But it is too early to write the obituary of Trump Democrats in western Pennsylvania, especially with regard to 2020.
Erie County, northwestern Pennsylvania, which was won by Mr. Trump in 2016 after decades of Democratic rule, is an important witness.
Ryan A. Bizzarro, representative of the Democratic State of Erie County, was shocked by the number of Democratic homes he knocked on in favor of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Bizzarro has revisited many of the same houses this year. "I see many of the same Democratic voters I spoke to in 2016 who voted for President Trump to return to the ranks," he said.
If a Democratic wave turns into a tsunami, Republican Congressman Erie, Mike Kelly, could also be in trouble.
Nevertheless, even this scenario would not condemn the prospects of Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania in 2020. Mr. Madonna, the pollster, has a fact that he likes to talk about the discussions he gives with the state.
"There are three recent presidents who have had a horrible first half," Madonna told the audience. "Reagan, Clinton and Obama. All three won the reelection easily. "
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