If Biden continues to ignore the example of two leading Pennsylvania politicians he will lose his home state. Pictured: President Joe Biden. Photo Credit: Joe Biden/X.
Endless analysis and deep digs attempt to understand developments in the 2024 presidential election. I have already spilled thousands of words on the trials, turmoil, and trouble both candidates have endured. Many have said the race will come down to the battleground states. When pundits refer to these states, they call them swing states to describe their tendency to vote Blue (Democratic) in one election and then return to Red (Republican) in the next.
In recent cycles that has come down to about six or seven specific states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada. The first five have flipped back and forth since 2012. North Carolina voted consistently for Trump in 2016 and 2020 while Nevada supported former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden in successive elections. But the margins were razor thin and Trump leads both at this juncture. The election will eventually narrow to the five states that led the list. Holding to any scenario, if Biden loses Pennsylvania he will not win re-election. He could win Pennsylvania and lose, but he could only win with the Keystone State, where he was born in 1942. Why does this state remain so integral to Biden’s hopes and why is he facing an uphill climb there?
Pennsylvania has been a classic example of a bipartisan state for decades. Governors from both parties have held the statehouse over the years, senators from both parties have occupied seats in Congress, and presidential candidates have fought for this state’s electoral votes. James Carville, Bill Clinton’s political mastermind once described the state this way: “Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.” The rural and urban divide makes campaigning a difficult chore. Democrats usually capture the urban vote but still have to get enough rural votes to secure victory. Republicans, of course, face the same challenge in reverse.
Two of the state’s most popular politicians are Democrats. Biden could learn something from Governor Josh Shapiro and Senator John Fetterman if he hopes to hold on to Pennsylvania and earn another term. So far he has ignored their example at great peril. This probably explains why he trails Trump in his birth state. What do Shapiro and Fetterman offer that Biden ignores? Much of it rests on support for Israel in its fight to defeat Hamas and ensure its survival as a nation. In another shocking example of the need for crazy pills, (see https://niagaraindependent.ca/why-the-democratic-machine-loathes-to-replace-biden/) the Biden White House believes that appealing to Palestinian protestors, appeasing a known terrorist organization, and eschewing America’s long-time ally (Israel) somehow contributes to victory in Pennsylvania, a state with a large Jewish population. Biden won Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes in 2020. Jews make up 300,000 voters in the state’s registers. Ignoring Jewish interests or spurning the Zionist movement could be the difference in 2024.
The template for achieving popularity and maintaining political viability in Pennsylvania lay in the political strategy of Shapiro, Governor of the state since 2021, and Fetterman, who won a relatively close Senate race in 2022. Both men have stood up for Israel, publicly backed the Israeli government’s efforts to defeat Hamas, and spoken against those who have tried to equate the actions of Hamas in Gaza with the Jewish nation’s response.
As a result, the popularity of these men has skyrocketed. The latest opinion polls in May 2024 have Shapiro’s ratings at 57 per cent approval, including about a third of Trump supporters. He has the highest ranking of any Pennsylvania governor at this stage of his administration in recent history according to a local report done on ABC’s affiliate WHTM Channel 27 out of Harrisburg: “Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is the most popular governor in recent memory more than a year into his term, according to a new Franklin & Marshall College Poll. That rating is higher than Governors Tom Ridge, Tom Wolf, Ed Rendell, and Tom Corbett at this point in their first terms. Governor Ridge had the highest approval rating during his tenure with more than 60 per cent support three years into his term. A majority of Democrats (83 per cent) and Independents (57 per cent) back the first-term Democratic Governor while 29 per cent of Republicans approve of his job performance.”
Fetterman also enjoys positive public favour, but last summer he faced political headwinds going in the opposite direction. Another Channel 27 poll suggested Fetterman was very unpopular, the station reporting that “Freshman Pennsylvania U.S. Senator John Fetterman is among the least popular members of the U.S. Senate, according to a Morning Consult poll.” After the Hamas attack in October, Fetterman strongly supported Israel’s right to defend itself, retrieve its hostages, and defeat the terrorist group committed to exterminating the Jewish nation. As a result, his ratings bounced back and he now sits in a strong position as a popular political leader in Pennsylvania who will be difficult to unseat when his term is up.
As Mike Wagenheim wrote for i24 News: “In light of the war on Hamas, though, Fetterman’s views stand the starkest. Elected as a dyed-in-the-wool progressive, the junior senator from Pennsylvania emerged as a political warrior for the Jewish state, vocally willing to defy and challenge his base in defence of Israel’s right and duty to eliminate the terrorist organization, including the devastating humanitarian costs for Gazans that comes along with it.”
By acknowledging the shifting dynamics of the circumstances in the Middle East, Fetterman pulled himself out of a deep hole and now sits at the top of the Pennsylvania political hill. What does Biden not understand?
Biden’s team looks at the national stage and thinks that taking a position that curries favour in his home state will lead to problems elsewhere, like Michigan. This accentuates the challenges before the incumbent. He has to win Pennsylvania or he will lose. If he does not win on his turf he likely loses other states crucial to his chances. Polls this week in Minnesota and Virginia put them in play, states Biden won easily in 2020. As Biden’s campaign looks at the political map they will have to face reality sooner or later. They can protest all they want that minority voters will come home, that the polls are wrong, that the economy is sound, and that what happened in Gaza amounts to two nations wanting a homeland. That won’t matter on election day just 143 days away as of this article’s submission.
If Biden continues to ignore the example of these two leading Pennsylvania politicians he will lose his home state. And that will be the ball game. Biden has never been mistaken for a profile in courage. His waffling on Israel looks more like an effort to pander than to lead, a strategy of cowardice instead of conviction, and a recipe for defeat rather than victory.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who now works part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, where he earned a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
