November 06, 2024
Damon Higgins/USA TODAY NETWORK
Donald Trump scored a victory over Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, winning by a larger margin than the state was decided by in the 2020 and 2016 elections. He was aided by gains on the margins in Philadelphia and its collar counties, where Latino, Black and independent voters have embraced Republicans in growing numbers.
In Pennsylvania and much of the country, President-elect Donald Trump succeeded in Tuesday's election in part by cutting into the margins of counties where Democrats have relied on lopsided bastions of support to carry states.
In his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump made key inroads in Philadelphia and its four collar counties. His biggest improvements over his 2020 performance came in Philadelphia and Bucks County.
MORE: Republicans sweep Pennsylvania races for attorney general, auditor general and treasurer
Trump is projected to win Bucks County by about 500 votes, flipping it red for the first time in a presidential race since 1992. His victory there also marks the only collar county he has won in any of his three elections.
The table below shows how Trump performed in the Philadelphia region in each of the last three elections compared to his Democratic opponents.
| County | 2024 | 2020 | 2016 |
| Philadelphia | Harris: 79%; Trump: 20% | Biden: 81.4%; Trump: 17.9% | Clinton: 82.3%; Trump: 15.3% |
| Chester | Harris: 56%; Trump: 43% | Biden: 56%; Trump: 43% | Clinton: 51.9%;Trump: 42.9% |
| Delaware | Harris: 61%; Trump: 38% | Biden: 62.9%; Trump: 36.1% | Clinton: 59.3; Trump: 37% |
| Montgomery | Harris: 61%; Trump: 38% | Biden: 62.6%; Trump: 36.4% | Clinton: 58.4%; Trump: 37.1% |
| Bucks | Harris: 49.5%; Trump: 49.6% | Biden: 51.7%; Trump: 47.3% | Clinton: 48.4%; Trump: 47.6% |
Exit polling data from NBC News show that Trump scored his most significant boosts from Latino voters in Pennsylvania. He won 57% of the Latino vote in 2024, compared to just 27% when he lost to Joe Biden in 2020. Trump also made strides with independent voters, earning 50% in 2024 compared to 44% in 2020.
There already were indications that Latino voters, especially men, were a growing base of support for Trump in Pennsylvania. In areas like Reading, the urban center of Berks County that went to Trump in all three elections, Trump saw a surge of support from Latinos between 2016 and 2020. In the latter year, Biden claimed the Latino vote in Reading by a margin of about 50%, but Trump's support among that demographic had increased by about 28%.
Lehigh County, which has the state's largest Latino population, also saw Trump make inroads over his last two elections. Harris won the county with 50% of the vote to Trump's 48%, but Trump climbed from 45.6% there in 2020 and 45.3% in 2016.
In the final weeks before this year's election, a statewide poll from Equis Research found that Harris led Trump among Latinos by 55% to 36% — trailing Biden's 61% performance in 2020 and Clinton's 66% in 2016. Democrats had been counting on the state's large Puerto Rican population to remain a bulwark against Trump's gains, but the growth of the state's broader Latino population gave Republicans new supporters to cut into margins from past elections. Pennsylvania has an estimated population of about 579,000 Latino voters, making up about 6% of eligible voters. The growth of Latino voters also is outpacing the growth of Pennsylvania's non-Latino voting population, according to UCLA's Latino Policy & Politics Institute.
Trump also made measurable gains among Black voters in swing states like Pennsylvania. Exit polling data from the Associated Press show Trump took 10% of Pennsylvania's Black vote compared to 7% when he lost to Biden in 2020. His gains in other battleground states were even more pronounced. Trump received 21% of the Black vote in Wisconsin compared to just 8% in 2020. Nationally, exit polls show Trump won 20% of the Black vote this year, improving on a 13% mark in 2020.
The cumulative effect of these trends played a crucial role in Trump's path to closing margins in Pennsylvania compared to his two previous runs. In 2016, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania by about 44,000 votes. In 2020, he lost to Biden by about 81,000 votes. In Tuesday's election, with about 97% of the vote counted in Pennsylvania, Trump held a lead of about 153,000 votes over Harris.
Pennsylvania has now voted for the eventual president in 11 of the last 13 elections.
