1984 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania
The 1984 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania took place on November 6, 1984, and was part of the 1984 United States presidential election. Voters chose 25 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
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| Elections in Pennsylvania |
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Pennsylvania voted for the Republican nominee, President Ronald Reagan, over the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Walter Mondale. Reagan won Pennsylvania by a margin of 7.35%, making Pennsylvania 5.5% more Democratic than the nation at large.
Reagan won the state by sweeping the small towns and rural areas of central Pennsylvania and performing well in the traditionally Republican suburbs of Philadelphia, but the race was kept within single digits by Mondale’s strong showing in heavily unionized and traditionally Democratic Western Pennsylvania, as well as his decisive victories in the cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last election in which Lackawanna County has voted Republican, the last time that Erie County gave a majority to a Republican (Donald Trump would win it by plurality in 2016), and the last time a Republican won one-third of the vote in Philadelphia.
This was one of only three elections since the Civil War in which Pennsylvania has voted more Democratic than neighboring New York (along with 1952 and 1956), and the most recent election in which it voted to the left of Illinois, Washington, or Hawaii. Reagan became the first Republican ever to win the White House without carrying Mercer or Armstrong Counties; George H. W. Bush would repeat this feat four years later, while his son would win without Mercer but with Armstrong in 2000.
Marian Bell, James F. Malone III, Ginny Thornburgh, Coral Scranton, Fred Anton, Harvey Bartle III, Thomas Milhollan, Marta Bell Schoeninger, John H. Ware III, and Theodore Metzger Jr. were among the Republican electors. The Democratic elector slate included Judith Heh, Roxanne Jones, Cathy Irvis, James J. Manderino, and Nancy Nancarrow. Malone was the chair of the electors and Bell was an elector for Richard Nixon in 1972 and Reagan in 1980.