President Joe Biden’s centers of support in Pennsylvania experienced significant amounts of emigration, jeopardizing his chances of winning the state in the 2024 election.
Biden won Pennsylvania by just 80,555 votes in 2020. Philadelphia County and Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s second-largest city, were two of his biggest areas of support that helped him over the top. Census data revealed that Philadelphia County experienced some of the most significant emigration in the country, potentially hurting Biden’s election chances.
“The biggest losses at the county level were in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County and Philadelphia. And those are two of the big centers of Biden’s support,” Berwood Yost, director of Floyd Institute’s Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College, told Fox News Digital.
“And so does that affect his ability to win by large margins in those counties? That’s a real issue,” he added.
Yost speculated that the population change in those areas could become a deciding factor in 2024.
“Uneven patterns of in- and out-migration could work to make what was a closely contested 2020 presidential campaign even closer in 2024,” he said.
According to a press release from the Census Bureau, Allegheny and Philadelphia collectively lost 24,074 residents compared to the year prior. The data were collected up until July 1, 2023.
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Counties that voted for Trump have also steadily increased in population. Though the voting patterns of those entering and leaving Biden- and Trump-favored counties can’t be easily ascertained, the numbers could spell concern for Biden in a state he will want to win again this November.
The RealClearPolitics polling average currently has Trump slightly ahead of Biden nationwide, at 46.6% to 44.9%.
