First off, Happy New Year to you all! Hope your 2016 is off to a good start. To kick off the new year, lets start with a diary from my home state of Pennsylvania. PoliticsPA had a good piece out today that showcased how Pennsylvania has truly been transforming from swing state to blue state over the past sixteen years. The biggest trend that has been dying off is split ticket voting in Presidential Elections, which Politico points out could spell serious trouble for U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R. PA):
PoliticsPA took a look at this trend to see if split ticket voting and here’s what they found:
In 2000, Al Gore won Pennsylvania over George W. Bush, 50.6% to 46.34%. Bush won 49 counties to Gore’s 18 counties.
That same year, U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R. PA) won a second term defeating Congressman Ron Klinkk (D. PA), 52.4% to 45.5%. Santorum won 59 counties while Klink only won 8 counties.
Both Klink and Santorum came from Western PA. Santorum represented the 18th district in the House of Representatives from 1991 to 1995. The 18th district includes parts of Washington County, Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties. Klink represented the 4th district from 1993 to 2001. The 4th district includes suburbs of Pittsburgh as well as Beaver County, Lawrence County, and Mercer County. The 18th district was represented by deceased U.S. Senator John Heinz (R. PA), who had a moderate to left leaning voting record in the House and Senate. Santorum pulled off an upset victory against Heniz’s successor, Doug Walgreen (D. PA) in 1990. Rep. Michael Doyle (D. PA) ended up winning Santorum’s seat in 1994 after Santorum narrowly defeated appointed U.S. Senator Harris Wofford (D. PA). The districts have been redrawn with Doyle now representing the 14th district that makes up all of Pittsburgh while Rep. Tim Murphy (R. PA) now represents the more rural 18th district. Interesting fact, had Santorum passed on running for the U.S. Senate in 1994, he was sure to lose his congressional seat. This Salon article from 2012 does an excellent job explaining how Santorum both won his congressional seat and pulled off an upset victory for the U.S. Senate:
Not that he thought Rick Santorum would actually manage to beat him in 1994. After all, Santorum, then 36, entered the race as much out of desperation as ambition, his House reelection prospects ravaged by redistricting. And Wofford was a certified political star, the underdog who’d channeled working-class economic anxiety into a stunning upset victory over Pennsylvania’s most popular Republican in a special election just three years earlier.
Word that Santorum would run for the Senate in ’94 began spreading almost as soon as the 1992 election ended. He had won his bid for a second term in the House by 21 points, but the margin was deceptive: Santorum’s survival had been a miracle.
Redistricting in early ’92 had transformed his district into a Democratic bastion — fully 71 percent of its voters were registered as party members. What saved Santorum was that the ensuing 12-way Democratic primary had been won (with 19 percent of the vote) by a state senator — Frank Pecora — who had been elected as a Republican and who then changed his registration when GOP leaders failed to protect his legislative district in redistricting. But Pecora still embraced Republican positions and caucused with Republicans in Harrisburg, so Democratic leaders shunned him in his race against Santorum, who got a free pass — but who also knew that Democrats wouldn’t make the same mistake again two years later.
The article goes on to explain how along with the 1994 Republican wave, the Senate race in Pennsylvania came down to the issues of abortion and gun control. John J. Kennedy’s book, Pennsylvania Elections: Statewide Contests from 1950-2004, also highlights how low voter turnout in Philadelphia and the Philly suburbs helped carry Santorum to victory. But how did Santorum manage to win a second term despite going blue in the 2000 Presidential Election? Kennedy’s book goes on to explain:
Santorum had gained a reputation as a polarizing figure during his first term in the Senate, but he entered the race with a large fundraising advantage and high levels of support from the political right. The contest began for Democrats with a brutal primary challenge; U.S. Congressman Klink narrowly bested State Senator Allyson Schwartz and former Lieutenant Governor nominee Tom Foley by running on the message that he was the only candidate capable to defeating the Republican. Klink was viewed as a viable choice because he was a traditional Democrat on most issues and had strong union ties but also was pro-life, which Democrats hoped would return votes to their party in the heavily Catholic but economically liberal coal regions of the state. However, enthusiasm around Klink's campaign quickly waned, as he was unable to appeal to either liberal or moderate Democrats. Santorum, in contrast, successfully balanced his national recognition on social issues with local concerns en route to a surprisingly large victory.
I remember I was still a student at Temple University at the time Santorum lost re-election to current U.S. Senator Bob Casey, Jr. (D. PA). Liberal Democrats were worried that the party would throw the election to Santorum by nominating another pro-life and at the time, anti-gun control Democrat. But the Casey name remained heavily favored in Pennsylvania and Santorum had not only continued to be a strong supporter of Bush’s failed war in Iraq and failed plan to privatize Social Security, he also continued to make outlandish remarks about homosexuality and birth control. Plus, Santorum had the little incident about his residency:
While Santorum maintained a small residence in Penn Hills, a township near Pittsburgh, his family primarily lived in a large house in Leesburg, a suburb of Washington, D.C. in Northern Virginia. Santorum faced charges of hypocrisy from critics who noted the similarities between his living situation and that of former Representative Doug Walgren, who Santorum defeated in 1990. Back then, Santorum had claimed that Walgren was out of touch with his district; these claims were backed up with commercials showing Walgren's home in the Virginia suburbs.[24]
On NBC's Meet the Press on September 3, 2006, Santorum admitted that he only spent "maybe a month a year, something like that" at his Pennsylvania residence.[25]
Santorum also drew criticism for enrolling five of his six children in an online "cyber school" in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County (home to Pittsburgh and most of its suburbs), despite the fact that the children lived in Virginia. The Penn Hills School District was billed $73,000 in tuition for the cyber classes.[26]
Santorum would go on to lose to Casey by 18 points. The largest number any incumbent has ever lost in Pennsylvania. The thing to remember that prior to Toomey, Santorum was the most conservative Republican to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate. To give you an idea of how moderate the Republican Party was in Pennsylvania, Specter was considered the conservative counterpart to his colleague, the more liberal leaning Heinz. Of course after Heinz’s death in 1991, Specter became the more moderate Republican from Pennsylvania.
Speaking of which, Specter is the one Senator who benefitted the most from split party ticketing. in 2004, Specter defeated Rep. Joe Hoffel (D. PA), 52.6% to Hoffel’s 41.99%. Specter won 63 counties while Hoffel only won 4 counties.
2004 was also the same election where Pennsylvania went to John Kerry over George W. Bush. Kerry won Pennsylvania 50.92% to Bush’s 48.42% despite Bush winning 54 counties to Kerry’s 13 counties.
Hoffel represented the 13th district, which Specter won in 2004. That same year State Senator Allyson Schwartz (D. PA) won the district. Schwartz ended up leaving her seat in her unsuccessful bid for Governor in 2014. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D. PA) now represents the 13th district. Specter was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980 riding on Ronald Reagan’s coattails. Even though Republicans lost several seats in 1986 due to Reagan’s unpopularity but Specter managed to hold on:
Despite the popularity of his Republican counterpart John Heinz, Arlen Specter was viewed somewhat tepidly by the Pennsylvania electorate entering the race, although both men shared similar moderate profiles. Additionally, economics woes had drug down the popularity of Republican candidates in the industrial states. Democrats sensed the vulnerability of the incumbent, and two men with similar experience in the U.S. House, but contrasting political views vied for the nomination. Don Bailey, the state's incumbent Auditor General, was viewed as the initial favorite, as he projected a strong blue collar image and had moderate positions that were often relatively close to Specter's. Bob Edgar, a Methodist minister and sitting Congressman, had more liberal viewpoints, as he was connected with the Vietnam War-era peace movement and the anti-corruption movement following the Watergate scandals. However, issues played a very minor role in the primary, which instead showcased the state's geographical divide, with Delaware County based Edgar narrowly defeating Westmoreland County based Bailey.[1]
True to his past as a political organizer, Edgar developed a strong grassroots campaign and reached out to alienated left-leaning voters. He attacked Specter as a politician who compromised his moderate political positions when pressured by the conservative administration of Ronald Reagan. Edgar, who had a history of winning tight races in his congressional district, was a financial underdog, as Specter was able to raise nearly three times as much for his campaign warchest. Originally attempting a positive campaign, Specter changed his strategy in response to Edgar's personal attacks and characterized Edgar as soft on defense issues and as a liberal ideologue. Edgar was never able to find a message that resonated with voters in the western portion of the state, and Specter undercut Edgar's support in both candidate's suburban Philadelphia home by presenting himself as representative of the views of the average suburban voter.[1]
Specter managed to go back and forth between angering conservative and liberal voters. Especially when it came to Supreme Court nominees. He angered conservative for voting against confirming Robert Bork in 1987 and he angered liberals for how he grilled Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings in 1991. In fact, Specter angered female voters so much that his tightest re-election race would be in 1992, another split ticket race in which Bill Clinton defeated incumbent President George H.W. Bush by winning Pennsylvania. Specter went up against Lynn Yeakel (D. PA), millionaire director of women's studies at Drexel University College of Medicine. Here’s a little more info:
Despite his powerful position in the Senate, Specter had numerous problems entering the election. A moderate who generally received only tepid support from his party's conservative wing, he was criticized by the right for opposing Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Specter subsequently faced a primary challenge from an ultra-conservative State Representative named Stephen Freind; although the incumbent won handily, the battle was expensive and featured many damaging attack ads. The senator was also highly targeted by women's groups for his involvement in the Clarence Thomas proceedings; in his questioning of Anita Hill, Specter appeared to show no sympathy for her allegations of sexual harassment. Furthermore, President Bush's popularity was rapidly declining in the state over high unemployment rates and was subsequently dragging down Republican candidates.[3]
Yeakel won the five-way primary with 45% of the vote, easily defeating the endorsed candidate, Lieutenant Governor Mark Singel, in an election cycle dubbed by pundits as the "year of the woman." Polls put her ahead of Specter by double digits. But Specter ran a campaign that was praised by political analysts for being almost flawless.[3] Despite Yeakel's personal wealth, her inexperience in politics led to fund raising problems; in turn, Specter ran television ads long before the Democrat. The moderate Specter portrayed Yeakel, despite her liberal attitude, as a member of an elitist blue-blood family; he emphasized her father's votes against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 while in Congress, her affiliation with an all-white country club, and her church's minister's vocal criticism of the Israeli government.[4]
Despite her mistakes, including a frequent tendency to mispronounce the names of places in which she was campaigning, Yeakel continued to perform solidly, and on Election Day, she captured by large numbers the traditional Democratic strongholds of the state, such as Pittsburgh, Scranton, and Erie. However, Specter undercut Yeakel's support in the state's most critical Democratic county: Philadelphia. Specter campaigned hard in black neighborhoods and received the endorsement of the NAACP. Furthermore, he capitalized on the ambivalence of many Philadelphia Democratic leaders to Yeakel, a self-described reform candidate; as a result, the hugely Democratic city featured a higher than anticipated vote for Specter. Also critical to the campaign was Specter's grassroots involvement in Yeakel's base, the traditionally GOP but Democratic-trending suburbs of Philadelphia.[3]
Six years later, Specter wound up defeating Bill Lloyd (D. PA) 61.3% to Lloyd’s 34.8%. Lloyd’s strategy was to make the 1998 election about Republicans voting to impeach Clinton but Lloyd had zero name recognition and Specter ended up voting Not Guilty in 1999. While Specter held on easily in 1998, he was facing a large conservative backlash in the 2004 primary:
Specter faced a primary challenge from Representative Pat Toomey. Despite the state Republican Party's strong history of embracing a moderate philosophy, the influence of conservatism among rank-and-file members had been steadily growing for decades; because of his liberal social views, Specter was often considered to be a "Republican in Name Only" by the right.[1] Although Specter had a huge fundraising advantage, Toomey was aided by $2 million of advertising from the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee that focuses on fiscal issues and targets moderate Republican incumbents. Toomey criticized Specter as a spendthrift on economic policy and as out of touch with his own party on social issues. Although Toomey had difficulty with name recognition early in the campaign, he built huge momentum over the final weeks preceding the primary, and Specter appeared to have transitioned from having a comfortable lead to being behind his challenger [2]
Specter received a huge boost from the vocal support of President George W. Bush; most of the state's Republican establishment also closed ranks behind Specter. This included Pennsylvania's other U.S. Senator, Rick Santorum, who was noted for his social conservative views. Many Republicans at the state and national level feared that if Toomey beat Specter, he wouldn't be able to defend the seat against his Democratic opponent.[3]
It took Bush and Santorum’s endorsements to help Specter eek out a 50.82% victory over Toomey’s 49.18%. Of course Toomey would finally get his revenge when he decided to challenge Specter again in the 2010 primary. This caused Specter to switch back to his original party in 2009, helping give Democrats more power in the U.S. Senate. Of course Specter ended up losing to Rep. Joe Sestak (D. PA) in 2010 despite being backed by state party leaders. Sestak reminded voters about Bush’s endorsement of Specter and how highly he spoke of Sarah Palin in the 2008 Presidential Election. Sestak of course ended up losing to Toomey by two points. While people like Sestak argue that his loss was dues to low voter turnout in a bad year for Democrats (which it was), others argue that Sestak’s inability to run a traditional and often spontaneous campaign cost him a change to hold onto the Senate seat for the Democrats. Sestak is seeking the Democratic nominee again but will have defeat Katie McGinty (D. PA), the former chief of staff to Governor Tom Wolf (D. PA) and Braddock Mayor John Fetterman (D. PA) first.
Pennsylvania is the perfect example of the political and ideological shift going on throughout the country. With traditional moderate Republicans becoming extinct and replace with Tea party extremists while progressive populist policies are now dominating the Democratic Party’s platform. Issues like immigration reform, gun control and a $15 minimum wage increase are popular among voters and help rile up the Democratic base. Toomey has tried to prove to voters that he’s a center right Republican willing to reach across party lines. But his continued tap dance between backing background checks with Senator Joe Manchin (D. WV) while holding up his own judicial nominees along with the great possibility of Donald Trump being the GOP nominee highlights the major problem with the Republican Party. It’s radical right wing shift has escalated to a dangerous level and voters are realizing that split ticket voting isn’t helping maintain a balance of power between the branches of Government.
Toomey, who former Speaker of the House and FreedomWorks PAC leader, Dick Armey claimed was the one who sparked the creation of the Tea Party movement now finds himself in a bit of a pickle. He can’t rely on just rural conservative voters to help him win in a Presidential election, especially with higher turnout in Democratic strongholds like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. He’s already angered gun activists for supporting background checks and he probably shouldn’t have supported a local union leader and former Sestak supporter in a special off year election. Not to mention the conservative uprising in the Pennsylvania GOP that Toomey helped revive has cost Republicans last year’s Governor’s race and the state Supreme Court. Republicans continue to hold onto the state legislature due to gerrymandering and under the leadership of Senate Majority President Jake Corman and House Speaker Mike Turzai, they’re continuing to obstruct Governor Wolf’s agenda to fund Pennsylvania’s schools and holding up passing a budget. Turzai was the one who bragged about how the voter ID laws would benefit Mitt Romney in 2012. Pennsylvania Republicans on paper appear to have a deep bench with guys like Reps. Charlie Dent and Pat Meehan who could end up challenging Governor Wolf or Senator Casey in 2018, they still have to deal with Tea Party extremists like Rep. Darryl Metcalfe who are rising stars in their party. It’s evident that guys like Toomey, Santorum and Tom Corbett are causing Republicans to lose grasp of the Keystone State and with the new Supreme Court, they can’t rely on gerrymandering much longer to stay in power. Toomey may have been the one time rising star in his party but now he’s become their poison. But as we’ve seen in electoral history that Democrats still need to have strong candidates in order to stay ahead of the Presidential candidates. While Hillary Clinton is looking like a strong candidate who can help down ballot Democrats win, it still comes down to running an effective campaign that balances both economic populism, Pennsylvanian’s evolving position on social issues and the ability to highlight Toomey’s extremist record. 2016 is going to be a very different year than 2010. Toomey knows that, hence why he’s focused on fundraising and trying to dupe the voters again. But with split ticket voting becoming a thing of the past, it puts Toomey at a disadvantage.