There has been much discussion about the red wave that swept the U.S. on November 5. With most of the votes now counted in all of the states, it is certainly confirmed the entire nation took a decisive step to the right. But a step to the right did not lead to significant change in races at the bottom of the ballot.

Here are some of the final numbers that came out of the Keystone State.

Nationally, 153.5 million ballots have been cast for the presidential race. President-elect Donald Trump won 50% of the vote, Vice President Kamala Harris won 48.3% of the vote, and third party candidates combined won the other 1.7%.

Pennsylvania’s Presidential

Pennsylvania matched the national results, with Trump winning by 1.73% over Harris. He has 3,542,478 to her 3,421,021. Two other third party candidates got a combined 67,817 votes.

Turnout was similar to 2020, when 6.9 million Pennsylvanians voted. This year, 7 million Pennsylvanians voted in the 2024 presidential election. There was 6.1 million voters in 2016.

 

 

  Kara Jeffers

 

Trump’s victory margin is similar to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. With all counties votes reported in, analysts are tracking where each party gained and lost support.

Berwood Yost, director at the Franklin & Marshall Poll, said Democrats lost support in key geographical strongholds.

While Allegheny voted in almost identical numbers for Kamala Harris as they did for Joe Biden in 2020, Philadelphia had around 50,000 less votes for Harris than the county had for Biden in 2020. A similar story played out in the counties surrounding Philadelphia, which all are also traditional Democrat strongholds.

Yost says that the loss of support in those areas, combined with less Democrat support in the rest of the more red or purple leaning counties, accounts for Kamala Harris’s loss.

"You're down 100,000 votes in key Democratic areas, and you're down 100,000 votes in the rest of the state, and you lose by 122,000. So that's that's the story of the race from the presidential side."

 

Other State Wide Races

The state treasurer and state auditor races both saw Republican incumbents win their races by larger margins than the 2020 election (Treasurer Stacey Garrity went from a .77% lead to a 6% lead; Auditor Tim DeFoor went from a 3% lead to a 5% lead).

Garrity’s opponent, Erin McClelland, received little statewide support in her Democratic campaign.

Attorney General Elect Dave Sunday beat his Democrat opponent Eugene DePasquale by 4%. The margin is equal to the lead that Josh Shapiro had in 2020 when he ran for his second term as attorney general before being elected governor.

For the Senate race, the red wave became little more than a ripple.

Republican Dave McCormick beat incumbent Democrat Senator Bob Casey by .24%— around 16,000 votes. The AP called the race on Nov 7, but Casey just conceded the race on Thursday, when all counties had reported unofficial finished ballot counts.

Yost says that voter roll off led to Casey’s loss.

Roll off is when a voter will fill out their ballot for one race (often the presidential race) but leave other races on the ballot blank.

There were 71,113 less votes cast in the Pennsylvania senate race than in the presidential race. Casey specifically had 38,802 fewer votes than Kamala Harris. McCormick had 144,005 fewer votes than Donald Trump (third party candidates made up the differences in totals).

Yost notes that in Philadelphia alone, Casey got 27,000 less votes than Kamala Harris. Essentially, if those Democrat voters had filled out the rest of their ballot, Casey would be going back for his 4th term.

“Senator Casey separated himself from Biden and Harris. He did not focus on a lot of policy issues like economics, perhaps seeing it as a liability,” Yost said. “That might have discouraged or de-energized Democrat voters."

Yost said there are a multitude of reasons why voters don’t fill out their whole ballot. Most common are voters might not want to vote for names they aren’t familiar with— and filling out the whole ballot takes times.

 

Bottom of the Ticket

For the Pennsylvania state representative and state senate races, both parties kept the status quo in how many seats they held.

Because of redistricting, Democrats flipped the senate seat in Harrisburg area. Republicans in turn flipped a seat in Northeast Philadelphia, where Senator Jimmy Dillon got elected during a special election in 2022. Dillon faced controversy over old social media posts and lost the race to Republican Joe Picozzi.

In the House, not a single incumbent lost their seat, with both parties keeping control of their open seats where members had resigned.

“I think people know their state legislators,” Brittany Crampsie said, a Democrat campaign manager. "You know, a house candidate is more likely to have knocked on your door because the district is so small."

Comparing race margins to 2022 election results, there was a Republican shift by just a point or two in many House races. But for the areas that both parties knew would be competitive, record amounts of money were pumped into campaigns. And local nuances and reputation were more influential than national political movements.

"They were splitting Democrat and Republicans pretty evenly, or not in a way that was unexpected,” Crampsie said. “We didn't see Republicans cutting into surprising demographics and legislative races the way you did for Trump.”

 

 

STATS FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO SEE:

 

STATE TREASURER:

2024: (R) Stacy Garrity's 51.91% to (D) Erin McClelland's 45.64%

2020: (R) Stacy Garrity's 48.68% to (D) Joseph Torsella's 47.91%; 3.41% to third party candidates

2016: (D) Joseph Torsella's 50.66% to (R) Otto Voit's 44.21%; 5.13% of the vote split between two third party candidates

 

STATE AUDITOR:

2024: (R) Tim DeFoor's 51.13% to (D) Malcolm Kenyatta 45.93%

2020: (R) Tim DeFoor's 49.44% to (D) Nilofer Ahmad's 46.35%; 4.21% to third party candidates

2016: (D) Eugene DePasquale's 50.01% to (R) John Brown's 45.08%; 4.92% went to two third party candidates

 

ATTORNEY GENERAL:

2024: (R) Dave Sunday's 50.82% to (D) Eugene DePasquale 46.19%

2020: (D) Josh Shapiro's 50.85% to (R) Heather Heidelbaugh's 46.33%; 2.81% third party candidates

2016: (D) Josh Shapiro's 51.39% to (R) John Rafferty's 48.61%