Elk County, PA

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Two reasons which sort of add together; it's an (ex, I think) mining area outside the Pittsburgh media market.  And ethnically it's more typical of various traditionally Democratic (and Catholic) groups than most of its neighbours. You just add the general swing (and maybe McCain's lack of Bush special appeal to the middle of Pennsylvania, I don't know) on top of that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually, Elk County was mostly a manufacturing area.  Brockway Glass, Straub Beer, and several powdered metals concerns were situated there.  Out of those, only Straub and a couple of the metals plants remain.  Unemployment is a huge problem up there, and has been growing for years.

"Was" is interesting; in the last census there was a very high (weirdly high for that part of the world, actually) percentage of people in manufacturing jobs.