Hillary Clinton is going to win, and the main reason is because Donald Trump will bring unprecedented turnout for voters of color, and college-educated white women...unprecedented turnout, that is, for Hillary Clinton. The suburbs of Philadelphia, like Blue Bell, PA, are exactly the kind of place where Clinton will make the largest Democratic gains in swing states across the nation, and that will total up to a thrashing come November.
Trump is badly lagging every previous Republican nominee with educated white women. Among white women with a college degree, Romney earned 52 per cent to Obama’s 46 per cent in 2012. Democrat Hillary Clinton, the first female nominee of a major party, is trouncing Trump 58 per cent to 38 per cent, ABC/Washington Post polling suggests.
No Republican has won Pennsylvania since 1988. Trump, behind in more diverse states, needs it desperately. He is trailing by seven percentage points. The four “collar counties” around Philadelphia — Montgomery, Bucks, Chester and Delaware — are a large part of the reason why.
“They’re hugely important. You had 1.2 of 5.5 million votes cast in 2012 cast in four counties,” said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College. “It’s virtually impossible for either party to carry the state if they don’t do well there. In fact, you usually have to win.”
The counties have been trending toward the Democrats for 25 years. Republican voters there, Madonna said, tend to mix fiscal conservatism with liberal positions on issues like gun control, abortion rights and climate change. Trump has staked out right-wing stances on all three.
Blue Bell went narrowly for Obama in the last election. An unscientific sample on Monday was notably lopsided: of 37 women, 22 preferred Clinton versus only eight who said they would vote for Trump or were likely to do so.
Their chief concern about Trump was not policy. They objected most strongly to his behaviour, to his attitudes toward women, and to his disparagement of Muslims, Hispanics and African-Americans.
“I think Trump is disgusting and awful and everything about him makes me sick,” said Stefani Bohm, 43, a psychotherapist.
“Clinton, because Trump’s a lunatic,” said Miranda Sarwer, 44, who works in the pharmaceutical industry. “He’s a bigot, he’s a racist.”
And Republican women can't bring themselves to vote for Trump. Again, Romney won this group in 2012 and still lost the election. What happens when Clinton increases her lead with voters of color, and then makes a 26-point turnaround with white women with degrees on top of that?
We're going to find out.
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