Casey. Philly and Pittsburgh should turnout for him
As long as Casey doesn't completely collapse in the rest of the state like Hillary did he should be fine. Luckily Casey is uniquely positioned to outperform generic D just as he did in 2006/2012. Considering Barletta is a single issue anti-immigration Trumpian from the Scranton-Wilkes Barre area, there's no doubt he's going to try to replicate Trump's exact victory path. But there's little margin for error there even in the best of days, much less with Trump's approval in the gutter.
The Scranton Wilkes-Barre Area is 1) the last hold out for the Dems in "the rest of the state" and 2) the one Casey is most likely to outperform Clinton massively in.
Having a local candidate who is immensely popular in that area and not just with Republicans (Barletta's father was a Democrat and he himself was nominated by both parties for Mayor in 2007), is I would think advantageous. Barletta's district also was redrawn stretching it down to the suburbs of Harrisburg, which means he has had to maintain a presence is two key areas of the state (NE and Harrisburg metro). Barletta needs to work to raise his presence out west, and in the Philly suburbs, but I cannot help but think that Barletta is being prematurely written off as some far right loon who will get decimated, along with once again failing to grasp the importance of the immigration issue for working class voters. Especially when it comes to the issues of large increases in legal immigration and protecting sanctuary cities such as Philadelphia, which Casey has voted to do multiple times.
Toomey ran hard on this issue of sanctuary cities in the last election and his out performing of Trump in the Philly suburbs has been well noted. For liberals who have often noted the effect of dog whistles in the past to motivate suburban voters, they would be remiss to think that the immigration issue plays only to non-college whites in Hazelton. Some of the biggest immigration restrictionists, such as Brian Bilbray, Tom Tancredo, Dana Rohrabacher, and many others including many moderate Republicans from places like PA and NJ, came from high end surburban districts with relatively high levels of education attainment. While it is definitely so that Barletta should broaden his message to include other priorities as well, underestimating Barletta, and failing to comprehend the broad impact of the immigration issue on the electorate, ignores completely the lessons of 2016.
Poll
