Pa. moves into the spotlight in the election campaign | News, sports, jobs

Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Dave McCormick speaks to residents during a campaign stop at Tom & Joe’s Diner in downtown Altoona. Mirror photo by William Kibler

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick’s campaign stop at Tom & Joe’s Diner on Thursday was not directly related to the presidential election, but is nonetheless part of the flood of political attention Pennsylvania is receiving this election season.

It’s about the Electoral College: Pennsylvania is the state with the most electoral votes among the seven states where the outcome between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is in doubt – and where it makes sense to run campaigns to woo the few voters who are still undecided Those remaining are hoping to secure the winner-take-all electoral bounty from each of these respective states.

Given that elections at every other level in the United States are based directly on the popular vote, does it make sense for the Electoral College method of selecting presidents (and vice presidents) to be retained?

Blair County Democratic Committee Chairwoman Gillian scratch doesn’t think this makes sense because of the discrepancy between the size of states’ electoral delegations and the relative populations of those states.

This misalignment contradicts the principle of “one person, one vote,” according to Schieber.

According to a National Archives website, each state’s electoral college representation is equal to the total number of its U.S. senators and U.S. representatives: two senators and a number of representatives roughly proportional to each state’s population.

This means that representation in the Electoral College is roughly proportional to the population – but not exactly.

Considering that all states have two senators, small states have proportionately more representation in the Senate – with the smallest, Wyoming, having as many senators as the largest, California, which has about 70 times as many people.

For members of the House of Representatives, the calculation is not so simple because there are large differences between the number of residents per representative and there is no clear relationship between the size of each state and the number of voters per House member.

For example, in a small state, Rhode Island, there is one member for every 529,000 residents; In another small state, Montana, there is one member per million – twice as much responsibility and therefore half the representation per resident.

According to a graphic published by fairvote.org, based on findings from 2008 and still largely reflecting current reality, smaller states have an advantage for the Electoral College.

Wyoming’s electoral delegation is 318% of the national average, which is one voter for every 565,000 voters. Vermont is next, followed by North Dakota, Alaska and Rhode Island, whose delegation is 215% of the national average. These are all small states.

Conversely, Texas has the smallest voter delegation relative to its population – just 79% of the national average. They are followed by Florida, California, Arizona and Georgia, whose delegation is only 88% of the national average size. These are all relatively large states.

The additional attention from candidates for swing states like Pennsylvania, which is based on the overall distribution of votes in all states except Maine and Nebraska, is also not entirely fair, according to Schieber.

This extra attention may lead candidates to promise more to voters in those states and ultimately follow through on those promises — simply because of the balance between Democrats and Republicans in those states, scratch acknowledged.

It’s about “giving a certain weight to the priorities (of these states),” said Schieber.

Jim Foreman, chairman of the Blair County Republican Committee, defended the Electoral College.

It reflects the nation’s original “architecture,” which was created not like individual counties within pre-existing states, but rather by pre-existing, sovereign states that were in the process of forming a national confederacy, he said.

“The Electoral College was negotiated to express the national interest” without states sacrificing their individual interests, Foreman said.

To people who don’t see it through that lens, the Electoral College can easily seem strange and perhaps unfair, he said.

The Electoral College benefits to smaller states also reflect a legitimate attempt to offset the natural population advantage for coastal areas, particularly coastal cities where people congregate for jobs related to overseas trade, versus the population disadvantage for rural, agricultural areas are equally important for producing the resources the nation needs, but will naturally have fewer people living in them, Foreman said.

Without the Electoral College, presidential campaigns would likely ignore places like Altoona and focus on population centers like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas, Foreman suggested.

“The juice wouldn’t be worth the pressure,” he said.

The attention Pennsylvania is receiving from the repeated visits from Harris and Trump and their surrogates is welcome because it can draw attention to local issues such as the need for better access to rural health care, Schieber said.

But it was also “exhausting,” said Schieber, who spoke to the French, German, British and local press about the campaigns.

The Pennsylvania Senate race between McCormick and incumbent Democrat Bob Casey has its own weight, as the balance of power in the Senate chamber is also at stake in this election.

The Democrats currently have control of the Senate by a narrow majority. There are 47 Democrats in the chamber, compared to 49 Republicans, but there are four independents, all of whom lean toward the Democratic side.

There’s a chance Republicans could win back control in this election, and McCormick is pushing to unseat three-term incumbent Casey.

At Tom & Joe’s, McCormick accused Democrats of “economic mismanagement.”

At a podium on the cordoned-off street outside, restaurant owner George Batrus recounted the much higher prices he’s had to pay since 2019 for ingredients like eggs, potatoes, bacon, milk and margarine, and disruptions in the supply chain.

“Stupid policies have consequences,” said U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who accompanied McCormick, speaking about Democratic leadership.

Scratcher declined when he spoke on the phone afterwards.

Bob Casey, McCormick’s opponent, “cares about us,” she said.

“I appreciate his service and look forward to his work over the next six years,” she said.