Trump is rebuilding the Democrats’ “blue walls” with red bricks. Especially Pennsylvania

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republicans scored historic victories in Pennsylvania this week, capturing the battleground state's precious presidential votes, posting a two-seat gain in the U.S. House delegation and winning all four statewide offices, including one US Federal Office, on the ballot won a seat in the Senate.

The strong performance means Donald Trump won Pennsylvania in two of three tries after Republicans lost six straight presidential elections there.

Something similar happened in the other “blue wall” states of Michigan and Wisconsin, the Rust Belt states, where Trump prevailed again after his defeat in 2020. Still, Democrats were able to prevail, albeit narrowly, in key Senate races in Wisconsin and Michigan, and the results played out differently in each state.

The Republican victories were most noticeable in Pennsylvania, a state that was early considered a standout swing state this year, where deep dissatisfaction with the status quo surfaced, in most cases to Republicans' advantage.

Voters had the economy on their minds.

Voters were in a bad mood

About a third of voters across the country, including in blue wall states, said they feel their families are “falling behind” financially. AP VoteCasta survey of more than 120,000 voters across the country. That was an increase from 2020, when about 2 in 10 felt that way. In 2020, a majority of cash-strapped voters voted for president Joe Bidenbut this year about two-thirds supported Trump.

Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, said Democrats have a lot going against them among swing voters: their deteriorating personal finances, fueled by inflation, and the feeling that many blame Biden .

said Yost, vice president Kamala Harris ran a strong campaign but was unable to overcome these headwinds.

“The mood of voters was so negative that they skipped the incumbent party,” Yost said.

Some voters' memories of Trump's presidency improved over time. VoteCast shows that just 40% of Pennsylvania voters said they approved of Biden's job performance, while 54% said they approved of Trump when he was president. Four years ago, Trump's approval rating in Pennsylvania was 49%.

In his victory over Harris, Trump won Pennsylvania by about 2%, with votes still being counted. That was about three times his 2016 victory. He lost Pennsylvania to Biden in 2020 by just over 1%.

Trump carried Wisconsin by less than a point, as he did in 2016, after losing it by about half a percentage point in 2020.

In Michigan, Trump won by about 80,000 votes — multiples of his nearly 11,000-vote victory in 2016 and about half his loss to Biden in 2020.

In Pennsylvania, Trump gained ground in Democratic-friendly counties across the state, including the Democratic bastion of Philadelphia and densely populated suburbs that ran heavily against Trump in 2016 and 2020.

In Trump-friendly suburbs and rural areas, his margins grew across the board.

His strength also helped David McCormick defeat the three-term Democratic senator. Bob CaseyRepublicans say, allowing them to retake the Senate seat from the GOP lost in 2022 as a Democrat John Fetterman replaced outgoing Republican Senator Pat Toomey.

Additionally, a two-seat redistricting shifted the state's congressional delegation from 9-8 in favor of Democrats to a 10-7 Republican majority, giving the GOP a valuable boost in its fight for control of the House.

And for the first time since the attorney general's office became an elected office in 1980, Republicans will hold the office all three nationwide row offices.

They include treasurer, comptroller and attorney general, a position that came into the national spotlight four years ago when Trump sued to overturn his 2020 defeat.

Majorities in the Legislature remained unchanged: Republicans retained their six-seat majority in the state Senate, while Democrats retained their one-seat majority in the state House of Representatives.

With more Republicans in the Capitol, the Democratic governor. Josh Shapiro — who made Harris' list of finalists for vice president — may be under greater pressure to work across the aisle.

Trump visited Pennsylvania more than any other state and often brought down-and-out Republicans to the stage.

Trump survived assassination attempt in western Pennsylvania over the summer – and then returned there for a while second rally — and drew a crowd to a McDonald's in a politically divided Philadelphia suburb, where he put on an apron and tried the french fry station.

Trump campaigned in conservative white areas, in heavily black Philadelphia and in a fast-growing urban belt from Lancaster to Reading to Allentown where Latinos are settling, and AP VoteCast showed he benefited from modest swings among traditionally Democratic voters.

Across the country and in Pennsylvania, a clear majority of black and Latino voters supported Harris, but slightly more of them supported Trump this year than four years ago.

“I told Donald Trump in 2015 when he asked, 'What do I have to do to win Pennsylvania?' I said, 'Come here often, Pennsylvanians want to get to know their candidates,'” Rob Gleason, the state GOP chairman, told Time.

Republicans won in Wisconsin and Michigan, but not by as much

Despite Trump's victory, Democrats had a much better night in Wisconsin than in the other blue wall states.

Trump narrowed Democratic majorities in counties around Milwaukee and Madison and maintained or increased his majority in rural areas, suburbs and other conservative areas.

“There were a lot of people who didn’t believe we could do this,” said Brian Schimming, chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party. “The blue brick in that blue wall is now red in Wisconsin.”

Nevertheless, the Democrats received a boost from the US Senator. Tammy Baldwin The narrow victory of Democrats and newly passed legislative plans by Democratic Governor Tony Evers helped his party.

They made gains in both the state Senate and Assembly, shrinking the Republican Senate's supermajority to a simple majority.

In MichiganHarris won Wayne County, which includes Detroit and suburbs with large Arab-American populations, but by a far narrower margin — about 90,000 votes — than Biden's. In the other two large suburban counties, Macomb and Oakland, Trump increased his majority by more than 55,000 votes.

democrat Elissa Slotkin Michigan narrowly won the open U.S. Senate seat, but Democrats lost the House seat it vacated to run for the upper chamber.

Meanwhile, they lost their majority in the House, ending a two-year streak in which a Democratic-controlled House passed new laws on gun safety, abortion rights and other top priorities.

Republicans say Trump's endorsement of early voting and emphasis on inflation and immigration have been effective.

In Pennsylvania, some Democrats said Harris should have chosen Shapiro as her running mate. Others said Biden, who grew up in Pennsylvania and made it his presidential campaign base, would have done better.

Former Gov. Ed Rendell questioned whether Harris' campaign responded effectively to attacks in the nation's second-largest natural gas state, which she would do Ban fracking. According to VoteCast, two-thirds of Pennsylvania voters support expanding fracking.

Larry Maggi, a Democratic county commissioner in blue-collar Washington County, just outside Pittsburgh, said Harris doesn't connect with people — especially men, and especially young white men — like Trump.

“That brave talk, that tough talk, people like that,” Maggi said. “It caught on.”

Maggi, a Marine Corps veteran, recalled a conversation over a beer at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall with a friend who was wearing a red MAGA hat.

Maggi asked him why he likes Trump.

“Because he tells it like it is,” the friend replied.

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Associated Press journalists Hannah Fingerhut in Washington, Joseph Frederick in Philadelphia, Joey Cappelletti in Detroit and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.