Behind the 2024 Election: Why did Harris Lose Pennsylvania? (Parts 1 & 2 of 3)

Greetings, readers! For the last installment of my 3 parts on the background of today’s political polarization (the first being on the first modern conservative candidate, Barry Goldwater in 1964, and the second on the first conservative to gain national influence, Ronald Reagan winning the California governorship in 1966), I have chosen a narrower focus. As anyone will know who followed the recent presidential election, the outcome hinged on just 7 “swing states” (states that “swung” from Democrat to Republican in 2016, and back again in 2020). Of those, political analysts consistently identified Pennsylvania as being the “must have” state for Democrat Kamala Harris (and Biden carried it by over 80,000 votes in 2020). As it turned out, this time it swung back to Trump by just over 127,000 (though along with all the other six, so its 19 electoral votes did not actually determine the Republican victory).

Map of 2024 Pennsylvania presidential vote (pink & red for Trump, blue for Harris)- Wikipedia

My goal in this post is to examine “how” and “why”- both “how” Pennsylvania has risen to such election importance, and “why” a majority in the state this time went Republican. What does the state electorate look like in 2024, and what is motivating the choices of its voters? Answering these questions requires a look back into 20th century history, when the state was not just a national leader in high-paying manufacturing jobs, but a global leader (not just in its two major cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, but in its smaller cities as well). At one time, for example, Philadelphia called itself “Workshop of the World”.

That industrial might can be said to have rested on 3 pillars: coal mining, railroads, and steelmaking. Manufacturing is clearly no longer the basis of the state’s economy, and all three are no longer significant employers. I intend to show, in brief, how the industrial economy collapsed (by the early 1980’s); what has replaced it; and what meaning these dramatic events have had for the state’s politics (especially on the national level). Large areas of the state used to vote consistently Democratic (after all, Joe Biden was born in one of the industrial towns, Scranton), but have now swung decisively to Trump’s party. In sum- why did Harris lose Pennsylvania?

My analysis will be in three historical parts: 1- the rise of the 3 industries; 2- the sequence of the collapse, and reasons for each, especially for steelmaking (the biggest employer and the longest surviving); and 3- the aftermath, i.e. the post-industrial economy and politics of 2024.

Part One- Background (1870s to early 1970s)

In the broader context of the global and American Industrial Revolution, Pennsylvania turned out to be blessed with three great advantages: vast fields of high-quality coal as a crucial energy source (especially the anthracite of northeastern Pennsylvania; secondly, a geographic position bordering the vast resources of the Midwest on one side, and deepwater access to the Atlantic and foreign markets on the other side (the Delaware River and the port of Philadelphia). Its last advantage was access, through the same port (and through New York) to an enormous wave of cheap (and often skilled) labor, namely European immigrants, in the long period from the Civil War’s end in 1865 to immigration restriction in 1924. A final boost came from the construction, by the Pennsylvania Railroad (at one time the largest industrial employer in the world!), of an elaborate network- connecting the coal mines, the sources of iron ore, and the major cities. A personal note- one of the tens of thousands who worked for the “Pennsy” was one of my own great-grandfathers, in the town of Altoona in central Pennsylvania (the site of the company’s repair shops).

photo of PA coal miners from Hazleton area, early 20th- from shorpy.com

The man who seized on all of these advantages, enriching both himself and the state’s economy, was Andrew Carnegie, himself a poor immigrant when he arrived from Scotland at the age of 12. He made his initial fortune by reaching a high rank in the “Pennsy” by the 1860s; he then made the fateful decision to go into steelmaking (and not just as an occupation- like his contemporary John D. Rockefeller in oil refining, he set out to achieve complete domination!). It was Carnegie who quickly took over and built up the big mills of the “Mon Valley” (Monongahela River) outside Pittsburgh in the 1870s. Thanks to his use of the latest technology (the British invention of the Bessemer converter), to the resources I’ve mentioned, and to his own ruthlessness (toward his competitors and his own workers), he singlehandedly surpassed the other great steelmaking nations (Britain and Germany) by 1900. The energy for his mills came from the coalfields of southwest Pennsylvania (coal at that time was the nation’s primary energy source- it also heated American homes).His mills made the steel for the nation’s railways, for its bridges, skyscrapers, and battleships. In 1901, he sold Carnegie Steel to the man who dominated American banking, J.P. Morgan, Sr., who combined it with most smaller companies to form a near-monopoly, the first billion-dollar corporation, U.S. Steel- employer of 168,000! The second-largest steel company, Bethlehem Steel, soon evolved too (also in Pennsylvania).

To skim quickly over the next period- it was basically a long struggle between the owners of the railroads, coal mines, and steel mills on the one side, aiming to keep just about all of the colossal profits (by preventing the organization of unions), and their enormous (and exploited) workforces on the other. Until the 1930s, the employers won the “labor wars”. But then came the Depression and the sudden rise of a Democratic politician, Franklin Roosevelt, who took the side of the workers (turning them into loyal voters for many years!). By 1937, as both railroads (due to automobiles and trucks) and coal mines (due to the replacement of coal by oil) were in decline, the United Steel Workers (the USW) had formed as the single union representing the entire workforce. And it began to reshape the relationship, winning (through strikes and negotiation, through the industrial boom of World War II and beyond) higher pay, greater safety, and the first benefits (pensions, health insurance, etc.).

The employers no longer put up resistance, because so much money was now being so easily made! The foreign rivals (Germany, Britain, Japan, and Russia) had, by 1945, all been heavily bombed and devastated by the war. The American steel companies, still dominated by U.S. Steel and Bethlehem, now produced 40% of the world’s steel- and most of their workforce lived in Pennsylvania! Being a steelworker remained dangerous (exposed to molten metal and a host of toxins). But, by the late 1950s, while the top steel executives were multimillionaires, the steel towns (the “Mon Valley” ones, such as Aliquippa, Duquesne, Homestead, and Braddock, and Bethlehem in the east) were prosperous, producing vibrant multiethnic middle-class communities (though Blacks and Hispanics were residentially segregated, discriminated against, and at the bottom of the pay scale). They were producing individuals who starred at the national level (musicians like Henry Mancini and Harold Melvin; football stars like Mike Ditka, Tony Dorsett, and Joe Namath). All of these communities were passionately loyal to the USW union (American unionization peaked at this time, at 30% of the workforce).

J&L steel mill in Aliquippa, PA, 1958 (from Henry Novak- linkedin.com- note classic mill housing)

So- what went wrong?? As some fine books explain (see the “Resources”), all this success, and big money, led to a dangerous complacency (very much the same as the story of the American carmakers at the same time!).

By the 1960s, the rival nations were rebuilding their industries (especially Japan)- and other undermining factors were at work too. Steel was gradually losing many of its uses- aluminum took over for cans; carmakers began to use lighter materials in automobiles; and plastics too replaced steel in many cases. Despite those trends, the long-time leader (1919-1957) of U.S. Steel, Eugene Grace, believed that, as long as his company simply produced more and more, it would continue to rake in the profits. He, and others, also ignored what was going on in steel technology. While the Americans were still using open-hearth furnaces that dated to the early 1900’s, foreign companies were now using far more efficient and productive electric furnaces. They thus had much lower costs, which made their steel that much cheaper. The American companies did a few small experiments with better technology, but decided that the expense of transforming their mills simply wasn’t worth it.

The final undermining factor was the cost of labor. A pattern had developed by the 1950s, in which, about every three years, a new contract would be negotiated between the companies and the union (sometimes after a brief strike, sometimes not). Each time the companies would, in a compromise, increase pay and benefits. Of course, this reinforced the power of the union (which was also becoming more corrupt and complacent too), since it was providing so much for its members. But the companies were passing on each new increase to customers, by steadily raising steel prices. When a recession hit their profits in 1958, they tried to break this pattern; the union responded with a massive strike (750,000 workers, for 116 days!) in 1959-60. Not only was it very disruptive for the U.S. economy, but the strike also forced companies which used steel to buy it from abroad. Wonder of wonders, they discovered it was cheaper, and often of better quality! Gradually, more and more, they would continue to import steel, rather than “buying American.” Yet, in 1972, Bethlehem Steel constructed a massive new 21-story headquarters, the Martin Tower, the tallest building in the entire Lehigh Valley, and in a wholly impractical shape (in the shape of a cross, to maximize the number of corner offices for top execs!!).

Demolition of Martin Tower in 2019, once headquarters of Bethlehem Steel (phillyvoice.com)

At the same time, American steelworker wages and benefits had become the highest in the entire industrialized world; it reached an extreme in 1963, when the new contract included, for senior employees, 13-week paid vacations every 5 years!

Part Two- The Collapse (1973-1983)

The breaking point came very suddenly, starting in 1973-74. Many factors converged: energy costs surged (OPEC oil increase, 1973- in turn forcing the adoption of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars); the long postwar boom ended with high inflation (1974 on); manufacturers continued to move away from steel; and environmental regulations added new costs. What remained of the passenger side of the American railroad industry (another steel consumer) had collapsed entirely in 1970, with the bankruptcy of Penn Central (the result of a bad merger between the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central), to be taken over, in much more reduced form, by the federal government as today’s “Amtrak”.

Yet, faced with all of these mounting threats, the top three producers (U.S. Steel, Bethlehem Steel, and Jones & Laughlin- the last now part of a Texas company, LTV) all continued business as usual- failing to modernize their mills as foreign competition (steel imports) steadily increased. Nippon Steel of Japan surpassed U.S. Steel as the world’s top producer in 1970. And the companies continued to provide generous new contracts to the United Steelworkers union and its members every three years (which in turn made an extraordinary “no-strike” promise in the 1973 version!). This pattern ignored the fact that the industry was steadily shrinking its workforce. After all, profits were still large.

The first sign of serious trouble came in 1976, when Bethlehem Steel, failing to get union concessions, abruptly shut down its renowned fabrication division in the heart of Pennsylvania coal country (Pottsville). This division had made the steel of some of America’s largest and most famous bridges, including the Golden Gate in San Francisco and the George Washington in New York. Over 1,100 highly skilled workers were laid off, and most of the town’s other major businesses soon followed.

In 1977, the union and its 340,000 workers won one last good contract. Then there was nothing but bad news. A big flood shut down the mines and mill in Johnstown, costing Bethlehem $39 million, and on “Black Monday”, starting in Youngstown, Ohio, in one of the most productive steel regions (the Mahoning Valley), 5,000 workers were laid off without warning (nearly 100,000 people would leave the area by 2017!). U.S. Steel then closed 12 mills, and Bethlehem laid off 800 of its top managers. The new Carter Administration started a “trigger mechanism”, imposing a tax on any country which sent us too much low-cost steel. By 1978, the union was trying to give concessions to the companies for the first time, to save remaining jobs- by giving up the health care and pension plans that had, with the relatively high salaries, lifted steelworkers into the middle class. Nothing worked; the national economy only got worse (inflation would hit 13.5% by 1980!), and now the layoffs were coming in the tens of thousands. The new Carter Administration set up a task force to devise a rescue plan, but Carter rejected the plan’s price tag (instead opting to rescue the autoworkers of Chrysler with $1.5 billion in loan guarantees- which was successful and was repaid). An idealistic group of workers and activists tried to come up with enough money to buy the mills for themselves, but failed, as the major steel companies lost hundreds of millions.

Not surprisingly, most Pennsylvanians, who had supported Carter and the Democrats in 1976, went with the charismatic and optimistic Cold Warrior Republican, Ronald Reagan, in the 1980 election. Reagan, along with pushing through the biggest tax cut yet in American history, went along with equally dramatic interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve to tame inflation. As a result, the national economy went into the worst downturn since the Depression (1981-83), with Pennsylvania hit especially hard. Another big employer, the portland cement industry in Bethlehem, once the world’s largest (its product went into the Empire State Building), failed in 1982. By 1983, the entire economy of the heart of the steel industry, the “Mon Valley”, collapsed; unemployment got as high as 30% (the highest since the early 1930s!). Reagan, who never campaigned in the steel towns, made a brief phone call to the head of the union local in Aliquippa, praising him for setting up a food bank: ““Oh, don’t worry, Pete [Eritano], this’ll all work out. There’ll be a good steel mill there when you’re all done. It’ll be leaner, but it’ll be good. There’ll be good jobs.” (quoted in Price) In a unique protest, unemployed workers jeered him outside a Pittsburgh hotel.

In 1984, another election year, Reagan was running for reelection against Carter’s former vice president, Walter Mondale, who tried to make the steel collapse an issue (calling the devastated industrial region the “Rust Bowl,” though it was “Rust Belt” that has stuck since). By then, there were just 44,000 steelworkers left in the state. Thanks to general economic recovery and quotas set by Reagan on steel imports, he did win the state that November. Bethlehem Steel would close its flagship mill in 1995, and went bankrupt in 2001. Jones & Laughlin soon followed, virtually wiping out its town (Aliquippa). U.S. Steel demolished its once-massive Homestead Works in 1986. It, and the United Steel Workers, would survive after that only by shrinking and diversifying (merging with other businesses and unions). So far, no business in Pennsylvania has provided anything like the large number of skilled and well-paid blue collar jobs that steel (or the others) once did. And it was those workers who were once the backbone of the state’s Democratic vote.

There is one bright spot to mention for the steel industry, however. In 1965, a young and far-sighted man named Ken Iverson came up with a radically different business model from the enormous “integrated” mills of U.S. or Bethlehem Steel. He began to develop “mini-mills,” much smaller ones with the latest electric furnaces, producing specialized steel products from scrap (of course much cheaper than steel produced from scratch). His company, Nucor, is today the top American producer. A few points to mention, however- none of its mills are in Pennsylvania (it’s based in North Carolina!); it has a far smaller workforce; and it’s completely nonunion.

-“Well my daddy come on the Ohio works

When he come home from World War Two

Now the yard’s just scrap and rubble

He said, “Them big boys did what Hitler couldn’t do”

These mills they built the tanks and bombs

That won this country’s wars

We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam

Now we’re wondering what they were dyin’ for

Here in Youngstown

Here in Youngstown…

From the Monongahela Valley

To the Mesabi Iron Range

To the coal mines of Appalachia

The story’s always the same

Seven hundred tons of metal a day

Now sir you tell me the world’s changed

Once I made you rich enough

Rich enough to forget my name” (Bruce Springsteen, “Youngstown,” 1995)

That's it for the first two parts- I will cover the state's recent economy and politics in the next post, and will finally answer: why did Harris lose Pennsylvania?

RESOURCES:

Alberta, Tim. “American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump.” (2019)

Bradlee, Ben, Jr. “The Forgotten: How the People of One Pennsylvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America.” (2018)

Dieterich-Ward, Allen. “Beyond Rust: Metropolitan Pittsburgh and the Fate of Industrial America.” (2016)

Freeman, Joshua B. “American Empire: The Rise of a Global Power, The Democratic Revolution at Home, 1945-2000.” (2012)

Jenkins, Philip. “The Postindustrial Age: 1950-2000.” in “Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth” (Randall Miller and William Pencak, eds., 2002)

Kenward, Lloyd. “The Decline of the US Steel Industry: Why competitiveness fell against foreign steelmakers,” Finance & Development (IMF), Dec. 1987

(https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/022/0024/004/article-A009-en.xml)

McClelland, Edward. “Nothin’ But Blue Skies: The Heyday, Hard Times, and Hopes of America’s Industrial Heartland.” (2013)

McElwee, Charles F. “Last Call in the Kennedy Belt,” City Journal 10/28/2020 (https://www.city-journal.org/article/last-call-in-the-kennedy-belt)- on Luzerne Co.

“”The Supply-Chain Empire,” City Journal Magazine Winter 2022 (https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-supply-chain-empire)- on n.e. PA as logistics hub for Northeast.

-“”A Suburban Reckoning in Pennsylvania,” City Journal 11/14/22- midterms

(https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-suburban-reckoning-in-pennsylvania)

-““The GOP Turned Its Back on Science. So Science Turned Its Backs on the GOP,” Politico Magazine 9/8/23 (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/08/pennsylvania-medical-establishment-gop-00114316)- on how PA physicians post-pandemic are boosting Democratic vote.

-“Kamala Harris’s Pennsylvania Problem,” Politico Magazine 9/27/24 (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/27/pennsylvania-harris-2024-election-00180099)

Palomino, Xalma, Juliana Phan, and Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas. “Voter Profile: Key Facts About Eligible Voters in Pennsylvania.” (https://latinodatahub.org/#/research/voter-profile-pennsylvania), Latino Data Hub.

Price, S.L. “Playing Through the Whistle: Steel, Football, and an American Town.” (2016- Aliquippa)

Serrin, William. “Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town.” (1992)

Strohmeyer, John. “The Crisis in Bethlehem: Big Steel’s Struggle to Survive.” (1986)

Winant, Gabriel. “The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America.” (2023)