Tag: anti-abortion

Ode to Pennsylvania

By Charles Dervarics

Pennsylvania has had its detractors over the years.  To famed political advisor James Carville, it’s just Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with “Alabama in between.” In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama got into hot water by citing his trips to struggling small towns in the state where people “cling to guns or religion.”

As a Pennsylvania native with a blue-collar background, I usually don’t take kindly to these references – though the state has had its challenges. As the coal and steel industries declined, those without a college education suffered. And it has a record of social conservatism, perhaps best reflected by the late Bob Casey, Sr., father of the current U.S. senator, who was a pro-union governor and leader of the anti-abortion wing of the national Democratic party.

Fast forward to 2020, and it’s not surprising the state emerged as a political hotspot. Natural gas and fracking have revitalized parts of the old industrial base in the north and west, while the state’s vast middle is still largely Republican and conservative. But the cities, particularly Philadelphia, remain a huge source of Democratic support where concerns about racial injustice and poverty take precedence.

But after Donald Trump surprised Hillary Clinton there in fall 2016, Joe Biden has turned the state blue again for a few reasons:

His home state roots: As he never hesitates to mention, Biden was born in Scranton in the state’s northeast area. The official 2020 tally has him with 54 percent of the vote in Lackawanna County, where Scranton is the county seat. Clinton’s share was about 50 percent. Biden also prevailed in Monroe County, the next county to the south.

Philadelphia and its suburbs: Biden again ran a few percentage points ahead of Clinton in the all-important suburbs and benefitted from higher turnout overall. In Bucks County, Biden claimed nearly 200,000 votes and 51.5 percent of the total, compared with Clinton’s 165,000 and 48 percent. More city residents also cast ballots in 2020, with Biden earning about 81 percent of the vote. 

Limiting losses: While Trump ran up the score in rural locations, Biden captured some areas the president won in 2016. One is Northampton County in the central-eastern Lehigh Valley, which Trump carried by four points in 2016. But current results show Biden with a slight lead there. It’s a similar story in Erie County in the state’s northwest corner.

It wasn’t easy for Biden, who took heat for comments on the oil industry and fracking that likely cost him some votes. But the small gains he made in many vote-rich areas – compared with 2016 – have given him a statewide edge of 40,000 votes.

The president’s legal team has raised challenges in Pennsylvania and other swing states, filing lawsuits to halt counts and challenge votes. So far, those efforts have not resulted in any changes to the Pennsylvania tally.

Charles Dervarics is a writer and policy analyst based in Alexandria, Va. He formerly was a reporter with newspapers in Allentown and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

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Will Barrett Matter to the Election?

By Todd Lassa

Precisely one week before Election Day, Chief Justice John Roberts administered the judicial oath to Amy Coney Barrett allowing her to take her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Late Monday, Justice Clarence Thomas administered the Constitutional oath to his new colleague shortly after the Senate confirmed Barrett by a vote of 52-48, Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed, One Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, who is fighting for her political life in her re-election bid, voted against Barrett. 

Justice Barrett starts work at the Supreme Court immediately, not a moment too soon for Republicans. The court, with Barrett now the sixth justice nominated by a Republican president and part of a potential five-justice majority with Chief Justice Roberts the swing vote, may soon decide challenges to the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, Trump administration executive orders on immigration policy, same-sex couples’ rights and the U.S. Census. The court is also expected to soon decide an effort by Trump’s lawyers to block the release of the president’s financial records to a Manhattan grand jury. 

There is also the likelihood the Trump re-election campaign will challenge Nov. 3’s results if Democratic candidate Joe Biden wins the electoral college. 

There is already election-related roiling in the courts, Pennsylvania Republicans wanted to block an extension to counting mail-in votes. The court rejected it without comment, so it may be refiled within the next few days. 

The court also rejected a case brought by Wisconsin Democrats who wanted to extend the deadline to count mail-in ballots.

The counterpoint to such apparent setbacks to the Democratic Party’s efforts to increase voter turnout and potentially win a majority of the Senate, as well as take back the White House, is that anti-abortion voters who are moderate or liberal on other issues may consider their goal achieved, and therefore may choose to not vote for President Trump next Tuesday. 

As if to counter that irony, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday called on Biden to expand the court beyond nine justices if he wins the presidency. Biden so far has refused to commit to “packing the court” as an obvious effort to keep the issue off the Nov. 3 ballot. The former vice president said in the Oct. 22 presidential debate that he would establish a commission to consider the option.

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