Biden's PA Victory Can Be Found in Local Ballots

Chart by Evan Brandt

With Joe Biden having evidently won the presidential election, the Monday-morning quarterbacking is what always follows.

How did Biden defeat a sitting president, making him only the second one-term president in 27 years?

One answer is he did it with a lot of help from the Philadelphia suburbs.

As of 5:30 p.m. Saturday, AP was reporting that Biden won Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes by 37,355 votes.

Associated Press had the total of 3,350,884 for Biden and 3,313,529 for President Donald Trump.

Two things are immediately significant. First Libertarian Jo Jorgenson won 77,427 votes. Had those votes gone to either candidate, it could have meant a different outcome for the nation.

The second thing, and this is where local news comes in, is to point out that Biden's margin of victory here in Montgomery County was more than 130,000 votes, meaning without Montgomery County, Biden could not have won.

Obviously, this applies to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lackawanna or a half dozen other places or states as well.

But I don't report in most of those places, so let's take a look at where I do report and the impact that had.

The figures in the spreadsheet I built Saturday after Biden was named the winner only includes Montgomery County (sorry Chester and Berks, I have a life you know) and all of that county's are not fully counted yet.

But they paint a remarkable story.

As the map above shows, Montgomery County went predominantly, but not entirely blue in the presidential contest.

To the surprise of few locals, the northwestern part of the county remained solidly red. But these maps, as can the electoral maps of the nation, can be misleading when viewed as in an all-or-nothing context.

First of all its important to remember that not all spaces are equal in terms of population. The margins of victory in some blue areas are much thinner than the map makes it appear.

For example, Biden's victory in West Pottsgrove was only by a 25-vote margin, out of 1,777 votes cast. And voters there split their tickets, reinforcing the narrative that this was not so much a blue wave, as a referendum on Donald Trump.

Change the contest, for example, and reliably Republican West Pottsgrove turns red in both the Auditor General's contest, and the contest for the state's 147th House District, although only by a four-vote margin for Republican victor Tracy Pennycuick.

This map shows how Montgomery County voted in the state Auditor General's race, won by Republican Timothy DeFoor.

In Collegeville, which voted by 61 percent for Biden, the second largest margin I calculated (Pottstown was No. 1) voters rejected Democrat Nina Ahmad for the Auditor General's post, preferring Republican Timothy DeFoor by a slim 36-vote margin.

In fact look at Montgomery County through the lens of the Auditor General's race, and it looks decidedly redder. (Above)

But as I said, maps are useful, but can be deceiving in the nature of their winner-take-all context

Here's another example.

Look at this map, and it might seem like the contest between incumbent Democrat Madeleine Dean and Republican challenger Kathy Barnette was a tighter one than it actually was.

The numbers tell a different story. According to unofficial results, Dean beat Barnette by more than 85,000 votes.

All this being said, my deep dive exercise into the numbers produced some interesting insights at the voter precinct level.

For example, although at 69 percent, Pottstown had the lowest voter turn-out rate in The Mercury coverage area, 69 percent of a big number -- 9,953 votes were cast in Pottstown -- adds up more than an 83 percent turn-out in Douglass (Mont.), where 6,005 votes were cast.

Pottstown went for Biden by more than 62 percent. Similarly 60 percent of voters in Douglass (Mont.) chose Trump. 

But Pottstown's totals gave Biden 6,275 votes compared to the 1,340 Doulgass voters provided to Trump. 

It's worth noting that Pottstown's votes represent just under 17 percent of Biden's margin of victory in Pennsylvania. Don't ever let anyone tell you your vote doesn't mean anything Pottstown.

Photo by Evan Brandt

Pottsown voters in the 7th ward enjoyed

free coffee and donuts provided at their 

polling place at the Ricketts Center.

And yet, even amid that overwhelming turn-out for Biden, he did not win every voting precinct in the borough. In the seventh ward, there was a tie in the second voting precinct, which includes the Rosedale section of town.

There, 377 voters chose Trump and 377 chose Biden. Those numbers will no doubt change once all provisional and military votes are counted, but what are the odds? 

However, in the seventh ward's first voting precinct, Biden trounced Trump,  745 votes to 170.

As an additional Easter egg, I note that all of those voters of vastly different political views on the presidency, all vast their votes in the Ricketts Community Center where they all shared coffee and donuts given out by volunteers no matter who they voted for.

You could tell almost the same story about Upper Providence Township, where Biden won by a whopping 2,278 votes out of 14,321 cast.

Two other places where precincts showed split votes were in Perkiomen and Limerick townships.

Photo by Evan Brandt

Voting was slow in the late afternoon Tuesday 

at the Limerick Township building.

In the northern section of Limerick, voting district 5, Trump was the overwhelming choice by 55 percent of the voters, 1,117 to 907. 

But that is also the least developed, and thus least populated portion of the township and the only voting district Trump won, although the margins varied widely.

In voting district 1, 500-plus more votes were cast, and there, Biden won by 52 percent, and a 105-vote margin. Things were tight in the voting district 3, where Biden's victory was a slim 48 votes, whereas Biden won by a 259-vote margin in voting district 4.

In the end, Biden, took Limerick by a 523-vote margin.

Things were a little closer in Lower Frederick, which has just two voting districts. In the first district, Biden won 57 percent of the voters. Whereas in the geographically larger, but less populated second voting district, Trump won 54 percent of the vote. 

In many ways, this dynamic mirrors the pronounced national divide between rural and more suburban and urban voters. Biden won Lower Frederick Township by 35 votes, a 1.2 percent margin of victory.

Biden's victory statewide was even slimmer, .55 percent, and the vast majority of his votes came from more urban and suburban areas.

This illustrates, in my mind at least, why every vote counts and that's why there are those who pursue political power who want to limit who votes.

That was something Pottstown resident Natasha Taylor-Smith made clear all the way back in August as she spoke in Smith Family Plaza during a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.

Here's some of what she said from the video above:

When I think about what is happening today, with people trying to steal other people's rights to vote, rights that we as women felt we had earned 100 years ago, an entire century ago, it makes me sick.

And when I think about the fact that there are people, who don't understand the importance of their own voice, their own vote, I feel like we have to find a way.

"The truth of the matter is, if you feel your vote is meaningless, no one would be trying to steal it. No one would be trying to take away something from you, it it wasn't valuable." 

When you look at how important the votes in Pottstown were to Biden's victory, and a change of direction for the entire country, it's hard to doubt the wisdom of her words.