Chester County

While Americans in all 50 states will head to the polls on Tuesday, the focus will be on a select few who will make all the difference in handing the presidency to either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. In the latest swing-state polls ahead of the presidential election, Trump’s already narrow path to the White House was looking increasingly perilous.

In Pennsylvania, a state which at 1 percent looked in-play for Trump, Clinton has a 4 percent lead in most-recent polling. It is a similar story in Michigan, where a final poll for Fox Channel 2 in conjunction with Mitchell Research showed a 5 percentage points lead for Clinton.

But looking at one of the most interesting counties in Pennsylvania - Chester County. In 2012, the county tied 49-49 for Obama and Romney, with just a slight edge to the Republican; increasingly, the demographic mix makes Chester a true swing county. Democrats and Republicans have been pushing their ground games hard in the last few weeks.

The unevenness of Chester County is part of what makes it a political toss-up. Once a Republican stronghold, it  is now almost perfectly split between the two major parties. The county's demographics are a mix of the rural conservatives who make up Trump's base; the rich voters who help make the county's median income the highest in state; middle-class moderates; and some of the poor, minority voters whom Clinton is counting on. All these voters, of different classes and races and ideologies, live close together.  As a result, campaigns have descended on Chester with ads, rallies, and meet-and-greet events--potential voters are targeted with almost scientific precision. The county is a case study in American demographic change, with its wildly uneven growth in prosperity, influx of Latinos, and fallen steel industry. All of the stark divides that have defined this election exist here in Chester County, in close proximity to one another.

Democrats in Chester County are focusing their energy on Coatesville, where roughly 47 percent of the 13,00 residents are African American. For a long time, it was home to the booming Lukens Steel Company, one of the biggest steel manufacturers in the U.S. But in the late ’90s, Lukens was purchased and the mill jobs slowly started going away; now one-third of the city lives in poverty.

http://www.ibtimes.com/latest-swing-state-polls-florida-ohio-north-carolina-pennsylvania-heading-donald-2443400

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/swing-state-pennsylvania-cant-wait-till-this-is-over/506909/


Post by Anete Rožukalne