By Dick Miller
WE CONNECT DOTS: President Obama carried Pennsylvania by five percentage points in the 2012 election, smaller than 2008, but still the same margin as Al Gore beat George Bush in 2000. So, why did Democrats only win five of 18 PA Congressional seats at the same election?
The answer mostly is re-apportionment. When the new district lines are drawn by the party in power to the primary benefit of incumbent members of that party, the procedure is referred to as “gerrymandering.”
In PA the Republicans could not have pulled off such a lopsided victory on “gerrymandering” alone. Democrat incumbents, worried about their own skin, also lobbied for similar boundary changes and overall Democrat leadership’s campaign strategy lacked effect.
The payoff came at General Election on November 6. Some 80,000 more votes were cast for Democrat candidates in PA’s 18 Congressional elections than Republicans, yet Dems only won five races.
Democrat voter registration in PA is about one million more than Republicans. Packing a huge number of those into few Congressional districts is no mean feat and in other times would likely draw a court challenge. No challenge was forthcoming after new reapportioned districts were announced earlier this year.
The new map passed the state House with 36 Democrat votes. According to PoliticsPA’s Keegan Gibson, “in part because Democrat (Congress members) Bob Brady (Philadelphia) and Mike Doyle and Jason Altmire (both Allegheny County) lobbied them to.”
Brady won his district race in November 226 thousand to 39 thousand while Doyle was an easy winner, 239 thousand to 71 thousand, to an unknown and underfunded Republican.
Altmire never made it through the primary in the 12th District which begins in southern Lawrence County and ends in Cambria. Republicans gerrymandered this district so that Altmire and another Democrat incumbent, Mark Critz, were forced to run against each other.
Republicans believed the new 12th District would effectively guarantee that the single seat lost to PA as a result of the Census belonged to a Democrat. Unexpectedly, Republican Keith Rothfus upset Critz by 10 thousand votes, reducing the number of PA Congressional Democrats (seven) in the 112th Congress to only five in the new 113th Congress.
The lack of strong Democratic political leadership in northwestern PA may have contributed to another Republican safe seat. What is now the third Congressional district had always included all of Erie County. Now Erie is split between the third and fifth districts.
Erie County voted 58 per cent for Obama at the recent election.
To offset the loss of Erie voters in the third district, line drawers included all of Butler County. Butler is not only more likely to vote Republican, the county is also the home of its current representative Bombastic Mike Kelly.
Reapportionment counted for most of Kelly’s 40 thousand vote margin over Dem challenger Missa Eaton. The balance was a result of where Democrat leadership investing its outside resources, did not stretch to include Eaton.
National Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee was still smarting from losing three seats in eastern PA in 2010, but lost the re-runs this November. Critz in the 12th District was also on the national radar screen, but lost by 10 thousand.
The contest that moved Dr. Eaton down to sixth in priority for national assistance was the 18th district, drawn to include the suburbs south of Pittsburgh. Despite its Democrat leanings, the seat has been long held by Republican Tim Murphy.
National Dems got behind Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi, hoping that Obama’s vote would help in an upset. Maggi lost by 89 thousand.
Gerrymandering works. In Pennsylvania, Democrats won their five Congressional seats by an average margin of 159 thousand votes. Republicans won 11 districts by an average margin of 65 thousand.
Because of weak Democrat leadership, Pennsylvania has replaced Texas as the number one location where incumbents select the voters they want to elect them. Ohio is nearly as bad. While Obama’s margin was closer (two points), Democrats only captured four of the 16 Congressional seats.
Reform would require votes by the very people this system protects.
