Doing a deep dive on Pennsylvania. Some really interesting trends and things to watch for. There are eight counties I am going to be focusing on.
2016: Trump +1.2%
2020: Biden +1.2%
There were some rural counties where Trump did better in 2020 than he did in 2016, but generally he was 2-4% worse in most counties, even ones he won. Here is the raw vote difference between 2016 and 2020 by county. What's interesting is he actually did 3.4% better in Philadelphia, but lost by 16,000 more votes in 2020 because of higher turnout.
Counties won by Democrats in both elections are bold. The number is the difference in raw vote margin between 16' and 20' for the DEMOCRAT candidate. The non-bolded counties are counties won by Trump and the raw vote difference between 16' and 20'. () is total margin in 2020
Philadelphia 15,926 (471,050)
Dauphin 8,908 (12,575)
Bucks 15,337 (17,345)
Allegheny 42,317 (147,846)
Lancaster -2,717 (44,362)
York -916 (58,589)
Berks -1,084 (16,841)
Westmoreland +1,168 (58,089)
So looking ahead to this election, Trump is going to have to improve on these margins. Doesn't have to be significant, but he has to drive turnout in rural areas and try not to keep bleeding out in places like Allegheny and Philadelphia. If he can get to 20% or at least hold serve in Philadelphia and get into the 40-42% range in Allegheny county, that would be a good sign. He has to at least hold serve in the four counties above that he won and probably needs to pick up 1-2% in each one. Look at 58% in Lancaster as a magic number, 64% in Westmoreland, 54% in Berks.
Erie is another county to watch. In 2016 Trump won by 2%, Biden won by 1% in 2020.