A protester during Donald Trump’s visit to Ambridge Credit: CP photo by Luke Thor Travis

There has been a lot of media attention lately about how President-elect Donald Trump’s Election Day victory was due in part to his insanely busy campaign schedule. Pundits have speculated that his focus on visiting many declining, white working-class towns helped the billionaire connect to those voters and swing many of them from their Democratic Party roots to vote for him. For example, a Washington Post article recently showed that most of his campaign stops were to Rust Belt swing states, and he won all of those states.

But analysis of some Southwestern Pennsylvania voting districts throws a wrench in that theory. While Trump won Pennsylvania by about 44,000 votes, his appearances at declining, white working-class towns, like Ambridge, Monessen and Johnstown, didn’t actually lead to victories there.

In Ambridge and Monessen, he still lost by 12 points and hundreds of votes to his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. In Johnstown, the race was much closer, but Trump still failed to get a majority or plurality of its 6400 voters and Hillary Clinton still beat him by 1 point.

The one town that Trump visited and won in Southwestern Pennsylvania was Moon Township. (Trump held rallies at Pittsburgh International Airport in July and November and the airport is located in Moon.) He won by 10 points there, but the township historically votes Republican and is hardly a working-class enclave. Moon is home to many white-collar office parks and its median household income is $57,000; Johnstown’s median household income is $24,000.

A look at the areas immediately outside the declining towns may provide an answer to where the real voter surge was occurring: in the wealthier neighbors of the declining towns. Take Ambridge, the former company town that once housed the American Bridge Company and had 20,000 residents at its peak. In Economy Borough, Baden and Harmony township (the municipalities bordering Ambridge), voters gave Trump between a 15-20 point victory.

Though not considerably thriving, it’s difficult to label these surrounding areas as downtrodden as Ambridge. All three municipalities are wealthier than Ambridge (Economy’s average household income of $52,000 is more than twice that of Ambridge). And while Baden and Harmony have lost a couple thousands residents since their peak, their loses pale in comparison to Ambridge, which has lost more than 13,000 residents since its peak in the 1930s.

It should be noted, that Trump did make GOP gains in Ambridge compared to 2012’s Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who lost by 18 points (Trump lost by 12). But voter turnout of the more well-off Baden, Harmony and Economy must be considered too. The three municipalities average turnout was about 78 percent in 2016, a 4 percent jump compared to 2012. Ambridge’s 2016 turnout was at 62 percent, only a 1 percent gain compared to 2012.

Trump visited and energized the declining, white working-class towns of Southwestern Pennsylvania during the 2016 campaign, but it might have just been those town’s wealthier neighbors that helped propel him to a Pennsylvania victory.

This article appears in Nov 23-29, 2016.

6 replies on “Donald Trump lost the declining, white working-class Southwestern Pa. towns he visited”

  4. Quick question for you, Ryan Deto. Have you ever stepped foot in “downtrodden” and “declining” Ambridge? It is articles like this, written in ignorance, that damage the reputation of a town. There has never been a better time to live or work in Ambridge. We have amazing people working on revitalization, a borough manager who is making positive changes, and an increased police presence to keep our residents safe. I invite you to come check out a few of our businesses, and have a beer at Bridgetown Taphouse to meet a few residents.

    Do we have the same population as we did in 1920 or 1980? No. But this town has improved drastically in the two years I have lived and invested here.

  5. Thanks Ambridge Rocks for the comment. I agree with you that the people of Ambridge are amazing and are working to bring positive changes to the town.

    And yes, I have spent a lot of time in Ambridge. Nationality Days is a great festival, police station pizza is my favorite pizza in the region, and I actually purchased my bike at SweetWater Bicycle shop and the owner/proprietor was so helpful, I am planning to only get my bike tuned up there from now on.

    You are also correct that revitalization is already starting at places like the Bridgetown Taphouse (the owner went to high school with a friend of mine).

    I was merely pointing out that Trump visited Ambridge, like his visit to Monessen and Johnstown, to make a statement. And Ambridge borough, on Election Day, rejected that statement.

    Also I would love to write about the work being done to revitalize Ambridge, it is a story that deserves to be told. Please email me at ryandeto@pghcitypaper.com and maybe you can help connect me to sources.

    -Ryan Deto
    Staff Writer

  6. One thing we aren’t seeing is how the voters were registered before the vote. Western Pennsylvania, and certainly Ambridge, are primarily Democrats. It doesn’t matter if the Democratic nominee would be the devil, they’d vote for him. There is no real reason, but they’ll grasp at anything the media and local democratic legislators tell them to grasp and repeat. Typically, it’s a campaign to scare the older people into thinking that the Republicans are going to take their medicare and social security away. Just shake your head when you talk to them and say, “isn’t it a shame what those Republicans are doing to your social security and medicare.” It’s been a game that the younger generations aren’t going to fall into for very much long because of the information age with technology. Unions have destroyed their minds.

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