With tonight’s big Democratic Senate primary between Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Joe Sestak coming down to the wire, what areas and key indicators should we look out for as the returns start to come in?
In advance of the election tonight, we spoke with Terry Madonna, the well-known political science professor and analyst at Franklin & Marshall College, who said laid out for us the key places each candidate will have to turn out the vote to win. “Well, everyone i’ve talked to is clearly on pins and needles about the outcome,” said Madonna. “You really need to have a sense about turnout by region. And some regions are more important than others. I mean, 38% of the Democratic vote is within five counties in the southeastern part of the state.”
Madonna broke the state down into some key regions, where each candidate has to do well. By far, the most important place of all for Specter is Philadelphia: “Philadelphia is the home of Specter, and the Democratic organizational and union support there is very strong for him. It is a key region for him. He must get a big vote out of the city, and he must get a sizable vote. But it is a city that has eluded turnout in previous midterm elections, it often lags behind the statewide average.”
“I think he needs to win something like 60-40 [in Philadelphia] with a sizable turnout,” said Madonna, though he cautioned that potentially different levels of turnout across the state make it hard to definitively give an estimate for Specter’s needed margin in Philadelphia.
Also important for Specter is southwestern Pennsylvania, with its population of conservative Democrats. In Franklin & Marshall’s last poll, conservative Dems were disproportionately more undecided than other groups. Specter also will need a good margin in the northeast, in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre region.
Sestak needs to do well in the Lehigh Valley region, also in the east. Another key region for Sestak will be south-central Pennsylvania — which is heavily Republican in general elections, but has a large population with hundreds of thousands of Democrats. “I would be shocked if Sestak doesn’t win my county, Lancaster County,” said Madonna.
This leaves a swing area of the Philadelphia suburbs: Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware counties. Delaware County is Sestak’s home area, where he should have a big margin if he is to win statewide. On the other hand, Montgomery County has a large Jewish population, which ought to turn out for Specter.
The TPM Poll Average for this primary gives Sestak a lead of 45.6%-42.6%, with all the recent momentum going his way. The polls close at 8 p.m. ET — at which time we will start to get an idea of whether that Philadelphia Democratic organization came through for Specter, or whether Sestak got his needed margin in the suburbs and other areas teeming with liberal Dems.
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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