Why don't people accept that PA voted for GOP senators in 2000 and 2004?

[uti2]

Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter were both GOP senators (of very different stripes), they both won their senate races, while GWB lost his presidential races.

What is with constantly conflating GOP downballot performance with top-of-the-ticket performance?

Going by that logic, you should use Carnahan and Kander's senate race numbers as a benchmark for a top-of-the-ticket 'generic democrat' in MO.

[SingingAnalyst]

Didn't the PA GOP used to be more liberal than the national GOP, and the PA Dems more conservative? Perhaps it is still that way.

[Mister Mets]

Split voting has become increasingly uncommon. What occurred in 2000 and 2004 doesn't apply to 2016, where no state picked different parties for Senate and President.

[uti2]

Split voting has become increasingly uncommon. What occurred in 2000 and 2004 doesn't apply to 2016, where no state picked different parties for Senate and President.

MO came extraordinary close, the point is that MO and PA have track records for doing this. MO did it in 2012.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am not sure I get the point. Is someone denying the Republicans won those elections?


From 1968 until 2004, Republicans won every Senate race in PA, except for the 1991 special election that heralded the Dem onslaught in 1992 and the shift of the Philly suburbs away from the GOP.

In 1968, Republican Richard Schweiker won the open Class III seat, despite Nixon losing to Humphrey in the state

In 1976, Republican H.J. Heinz III won the open Class I seat, despite Ford losing the state to Carter.

The GOP base and coalition have been shifting in the state. In low turnout off years, the suburbs would still vote Republican and carry Republicans to victory in court races and so forth. that is beginning to change as the transformation is beginning to trickle down even there. The same has not happened for the GOP trending areas in the West and NE, which still vote for homeboy Democrats at a higher rate than they did for Clinton, though not as high as 10 or 15 years ago.

Once this process runs its course, The GOP will regain some of its lost footing down ballot.

[sg0508]

Specter won in '04 because the Democrats chose a nobody for their nominee.  He was beatable that year, especially given the primary.  Ironically, Bush may have helped him given that conservatives still showed up to the polls in mid-PA in droves and likely held their nose while punching the ticket for Arlen.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

I thought that split ticketing was becoming less popular? Wasn't last year the first general election year in modern history where every state that had a senate race elected a senator of the same party as the presidential candidate they voted for?

[Fuzzy Bear]

Pennsylvania's electorate is somewhat more elastic than average. 

Then, too, there's the circumstances of these elections.  In 2004, Specter was a moderate Republican who had some Democratic support.  In 2000, Santorum's Democratic opponent was Rep. Ron Klink, who was pro-life and somewhat socially conservative, which didn't play well in the Philly suburbs.

[JoshPA]

there was a time when pa had a pro choice republican senator and a pro life democrat senator at the same time.

[JoshPA]

Split voting has become increasingly uncommon. What occurred in 2000 and 2004 doesn't apply to 2016, where no state picked different parties for Senate and President.

*cough Michigan cough*

[JoshPA]

I thought that split ticketing was becoming less popular? Wasn't last year the first general election year in modern history where every state that had a senate race elected a senator of the same party as the presidential candidate they voted for?

not every state voting last year thought your state could count for vote spliting