09 October 2008

Political Poll Gives Insight into Western Pennsylvania Voters

District favors Democratic representative but Republican president

Incumbent Representative Jason Altmire has maintained his lead in the Democratic-dominated Pennsylvania 4th.

By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer

Washington — In much of the United States the increased participation of younger voters is believed to favor the Democrats and presidential candidate Barack Obama, but a recent independent poll of voters in the Pennsylvania 4th Congressional District reveals a much different dynamic in the conservative-leaning area.

Democratic incumbent Jason Altmire continues to lead Republican challenger Melissa Hart in the congressional race by 12 percentage points, according to data released October 7 by SurveyUSA, but Altmire’s support appears to be much stronger among voters 50 and older by 22 percent, versus Hart’s 3-point advantage among voters between ages 18 and 49.

J.D. Prose, who writes for the Beaver County Times in the heart of the Pennsylvania 4th, told America.gov that Altmire’s support among older voters may be due to the area’s traditional identification with the Democratic Party. Prose added that registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by a 2-1 margin.

New voters are not necessarily loyal to the party of their elders. “The Democratic Party dominates the older set whereas younger voters might be more split up party-wise,” said Prose, who has covered the Pennsylvania 4th political scene since November 2003.

Altmire’s lead in the district also might be due to his advantage in funding and the Hart campaign’s relative lack of visibility.

“If anything, I think Jason has lengthened his lead because Melissa’s campaign has been sort of dormant,” he said, noting that Hart only recently began to run a single television ad and has not mailed out much campaign literature.

“From what I’ve seen the Republican Party isn’t really jumping in to help her at this point, [by] putting out mailers and that type of thing,” Prose said.

Hart faced “an uphill battle to begin with” because little has changed in her positions since she lost the congressional seat in 2006. Nor is she helped by the continued unpopularity of President Bush and questions about progress in the Iraq war that remain on the minds of voters.

“Now you throw the economy into the mix where regardless of who’s ‘faulted,’ the people in power, especially the president, will take a fall for it and ... she was tied with Bush when she was in and she voted with the president I think 92 percent of the time,” he said.

OBAMA FAILING TO DRAW MUCH SUPPORT IN DISTRICT

However, Altmire’s relative popularity does not necessarily translate into support for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. According to the SurveyUSA poll, if the election had been held October 7, Republican John McCain would have won the district by 51 percent to Obama’s 43 percent.

Western Pennsylvanians have suffered from a dearth of economic opportunity since the 1980s.

Prose described western Pennsylvania as “conservative Democratic territory,” where Bush did well in his two presidential contests.

But Prose said part of the reason why the heavily Democratic district is not leaning toward Obama “has to be attributed to race also.”

It is an issue that many do not want to talk about, he said, even Obama supporters, because they “don’t want to make that an issue. But the fact [is] that he’s a black man … [and] some people just have reservations about voting for a black guy.”

Another factor affecting the presidential race is the large number of military veterans in the district — Prose estimated 70,000 — who are likely to be attracted to fellow veteran and former prisoner of war John McCain.

“You know, [when] you have a guy like John McCain, the war hero and everything, it doesn’t surprise me a bit that he’s winning in the district.”

WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA NO STRANGER TO ECONOMIC WOES

Many Americans recently ranked the faltering U.S. economy above the Iraq war, terrorism and education as their biggest concern. But for residents of the Pennsylvania 4th, economic troubles “have been here since the early 1980s and they never went away,” Prose said.

The steel industry provided jobs until the late 1970s and early 1980s. Since those jobs went away, the district has been struggling to find a way to develop economically even as much of the rest of the United States prospered during the 1990s and mid-2000s.

“The good-paying union jobs are what people talk about here … jobs that you can support a family on and buy a house and have a car and that type of thing,” he said. But for many years, the only way for young workers and families to find those types of jobs has been to move away, and the region has not found a way to reverse the trend.

As federal legislation to use up to $700 billion in public funds to buy mortgage-backed and other securities made its way to lawmakers, Altmire’s constituents let him know they strongly opposed the measure; he was one of the few Democratic House members to vote against both versions of the bill.

Prose said the grassroots opposition was a “visceral reaction” to the notion that wealthy bankers and Wall Street “fat cats” were getting financial assistance while many average Americans were struggling.

Altmire’s opposition to the legislation might not have gained him votes, but if he had voted with the Democratic Party, Melissa Hart probably would have gained an issue to take to the voters.

This article is part of America.gov’s continuing coverage of seven of the 435 U.S. congressional districts during the 2008 campaign. Each offers a different prism from which to view U.S. politics. For more information, see U.S Elections — State and Local.