The election is just hours away, yet we likely won’t know the winner for a while. The electoral college has shifted all of the significance onto seven swing states, leaving the election up to a small percentage of our country. This article argues that the people who will decide this election is even smaller than seven swing states; it could be decided by a few thousand people in a small town in Pennsylvania called Millcreek Township. 

Pennsylvania carries 19 electoral votes making it a crucial state to pick up this election. Not only is it a bellwether, it’s correctly voted for the winner of the popular vote every year since 1968 except just one time and the electoral college winner every year since 1968 except just two times, but it also carries the most path to victories in this year’s election too. Using 270towin.com’s interactive tool, if Republicans win Pennsylvania they have sixteen paths to victory, and if they lose it, they have just six. On top of that, if the Democrats win Pennsylvania and just one more swing state, then on average Republicans have just one path to victory (winning all of the other swing states). If Republicans win Pennsylvania and one more swing state, the Democrats have about three paths. The point is, winning Pennsylvania is not only an indicator of greater trends within the country, but it also gives the parties significant inroads when it comes to winning the game of the electoral college.

Can the election really be swung by just one state though? I argue it goes even further than that. Ballotpedia tracks what are called “pivot counties,” meaning counties that voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016. It has identified just three for Pennsylvania, and only two of them have correctly voted Obama-Trump-Biden, Erie and Northampton. These two counties have a combined population of about 500,000 people and have only changed by about 2-4 percentage points each election, but it has been enough to swing the winner of the state, and eventually the whole election. 

We’re not done zooming in though. I was curious how deep does this pattern go? Could there be swing cities inside swing counties inside swing states? Surely our electoral college was more representative than just being swung by a couple hundred people in Erie, PA? Luckily, there was a way to dig deeper. Both Erie and Northampton release precinct by precinct results that allows us to dig deeper onto which areas of the county voted which ways. While Northampton’s results were largely inconclusive and trend more towards a turnout game, Erie provided some stark numbers. After downloading the 2020 table and transcribing the 2016 results, it was clear that Biden had only needed to flip 15 of the 149 precincts to win the county. Here was the list of the precincts he flipped:

HARBORCREEK TOWNSHIP 1ST DISTRICT

LAWRENCE PARK TOWNSHIP 2ND DISTRICT

LAWRENCE PARK TOWNSHIP 3RD DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 3RD DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 4TH DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 8TH DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 9TH DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 10TH DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 14TH DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 15TH DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 16TH DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 17TH DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 19TH DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 22ND DISTRICT

MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP 25TH DISTRICT

The pattern jumps out immediately. 12 of the 15 precincts that Joe Biden flipped in the pivot county in the most significant swing state were all from one town: Millcreek Township. What does this tell us about the election? 

First, our system is broken. We claim to be a democracy, but in reality our election might be decided by fewer people than can fit in Fenway Park. In 2020, just 32,187 votes were cast in Millcreek township. Of the precincts listed above, Biden won them by a combined 1,318 votes. Next, how can this affect our election this year? Looking at US Census Bureau Data, the town is predominately white and middle-class. 

While much of the attention has been on Black and Arab voters in Michigan, winning white working-class voters might be key to carrying Pennsylvania. Here’s how to use this knowledge to watch the results come in tonight. Realistically, Pennsylvania could be undecided for three to five days until after the election, and the lead could change multiple times, meaning that the numbers you see tonight are likely to change as the election progresses. Here is what we do know though.

Millcreek Township may have been such a swing city because it was representative of the voters that we’re being fought over in Biden’s elections. We may see the tipping point in this election be cities that are more diverse, or who have a stronger gender gap. Conversely, Millcreek Township might be so representative of who wins the election for exactly that reason. Working class white voters are the exact group that does swing Pennsylvania. So when the results come in tonight, here are some benchmarks to look for. Clinton won 37 percent of white voters in 2016; Biden won 41 percent in 2020. The brightline for how many is needed to swing states like these is unclear, but if the exit polls show Harris at around 39-40 percent, that might be an early indicator of favorable results for the Democrats in Pennsylvania. 

Here’s where the biggest swing may come from. Clinton won just 46 percent of middle-income households in 2016 while Biden carried up 57 percent of them in 2020! So, when the exit polls start to trickle in, if Harris is hitting around 40 percent of white voters and over 50-52 percent of middle-class voters, you can interpret is an early sign she might pull off the victory. 

The likelihood that Millcreek township will determine this year’s election as well is low. The previous results may have been more correlation than causation. It does, however, give us a key insight into which voting groups are key to winning this election, and if Millcreek does end up being the sole decider of our election, then we have a very broken system.

Note to the reader - You can read through some of the facts yourself here:

Erie County 2020 Election Results

Erie County 2016 Election Results

Other tools used for this analysis are linked throughout the article