The GOP’s Path to a Pennsylvania Majority

The new Pennsylvania GOP chairman, state Sen. Greg Rothman, was elected on a platform that can be described as: “Let’s make Pennsylvania Florida.” In other words, make the GOP the plurality party in Pennsylvania and turn the perennial purple state red – just like Florida transitioned over the past decade.

This requires executing three things well: registering more Republicans; winning over more voters to support GOP candidates; and getting more supporters to actually vote. Those tasks are intertwined in messaging, tactics, and tone. Yet they require refocused priorities – and mindset.

Republican consultant Albert Eisenberg, a principal at the messaging firm BlueStateRed, just released a post-election analysis of how the GOP built their 2024 margins in Pennsylvania – from Trump to McCormick (the only swing state U.S. Senate challenger to win) to statewide row officers, two newly elected U.S. representatives, and a new state senator in Philadelphia.

Eisenberg shares my passion for building a GOP majority through engaging and welcoming in ethnic minorities such as Hispanics, Chinese and Indian-Americans, Jewish voters, and African Americans. He has worked on strategies, tactics, and messaging to engage them. Through his work and many others, we see the benefits of this outreach and engagement. Eisenberg now has data to show that this outreach isn’t just morally responsible for the GOP, but also smart political strategy and mathematically necessary.

Regarding Hispanics, Eisenberg provides examples of the dramatic shift among Hispanics: “Hispanics in Philadelphia voted more Republican than the City as a whole.” And their 14% shift to the GOP provided the margin of victory for U.S. Sen. McCormick and new U.S. Reps. Mackenzie and Bresnahan.

When it comes to African-American voters, there has been a small shift toward the GOP, but the bigger opportunity may lie in the fact that African-American voters just aren’t voting. A significant number have grown weary of Democrats – and stopped voting. As an example, Pennsylvania’s turnout grew by over 10% from 2012 to 2024; yet black turnout in Harrisburg fell by 3.2%. Republicans need to talk to them.

Jewish voters also show trends with similar opportunities for the GOP. In 2018, the GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate won 19.7% of the vote in Lower Merion’s Orthodox precincts. Yet in 2024, McCormick won 31.3%. In addition, other elections show they are more and more likely to split their tickets versus years past.

Go get people who want to be members of the GOP or, at least, share GOP priorities and/or policy positions. Follow the old saying: “rob banks because that’s where the money is.”

This is similar to my mantra that the near-term future of the GOP in Pennsylvania is in Philadelphia’s Mayfair section, not the formerly red Malvern on the Main Line. It’s in Reading, not Radnor. New GOP voters are those who value security, school choice, economic opportunity family, faith, and small business – not virtue-signaling or the latest cause du jour.

The GOP’s opportunity includes first and second-generation Americans who genuinely believe in the American Dream – that hard work can help parents ensure that their kids will do even better than them. And Eisenberg’s data showed that those shifting movements began a few years back but leapt forward in 2024 as Democrats ignored or rejected their values and priorities – or attacked them, in the case of Jewish voters. For now, pause the aspiration of reclaiming the Main Line and instead go for those ethnic voters predisposed to the GOP. 

This is what the GOP in Florida has done under the leadership of Gov. DeSantis, who engaged in concerted outreach. The Florida GOP is now not only the overwhelming majority party; it’s also home to countless Hispanic, Africa-American, and now Jewish voters. DeSantis carried Miami-Dade County in his re-election.

The road to Florida is clear: register voters – focusing on events and communities looking to join the GOP. The Democratic advantage over the GOP was over 1 million voters a generation ago. In March, it was under 48,000 – with 2022 to 2024 being significant years of GOP growth and voters leaving the Democratic party. The GOP could be the plurality party by the end of 2025. They need to keep pushing that snowball down the hill.

Use every form of voting, including mail-in. I’ve been among those making the case for years – not to intentionally fight with one arm tied behind their backs. Not allowing Democrats to start each election’s “100-yard dash” with their candidates at the 60-yard line. It’s working. As Athan Koutsiouroumbas pointed out through his analysis, what was at times an almost 5-1 advantage has shrunk to under 3-1. Two trends are occurring: the GOP is using mail-in voting more and more – especially “in-person” mail-in voting in suburban Philadelphia, and Democrats are using it less. What was a 60% advantage is down to 47% — and falling. (Yet, as the special election in Lancaster Count in March showed, the GOP cannot turn the spigot off in off year or special elections – the Democrats’ upset win was due in no small part to having a huge mail in advantage on Election Day.)

The new GOP-formula has been shown to work – to claw to a razor-thin majority. The election victories and now the post-election data show the formula to grow to a bona fide plurality – to make Pennsylvania Florida.

Pennsylvania can go red, go back to blue, or stay purple. The GOP controls its destiny.

This article was originally published by RealClearPennsylvania and made available via RealClearWire.