Local Analysis

I've been studying the Pennsylvania election results posted atustogether.org, and taking the local Philly angle here, I notice a couple interesting trends. First, Kerry handily won Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, and Delaware counties. The fact that he won Delaware county by 40,000 votes is astonishing. I grew up in Delaware county and it was once a bastion of the Republican machine. It is clearly trending Democratic, most likely due to demographics. Chester county, where I live now was the only metro area county to tip toward Bush, but it was a squeaker margin at a little over 10,000 votes. This is in a county where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 53% to 30%. When we look at the percent change numbers, we see that in Chester county, Republican percentages actually dropped about 1%, while Democrats surged a remarkable 56%. That's a massive swing. The change was even more striking in Delaware county, with the Bush change minus 23% and Kerry up 69%. What does this tell me? My eyes weren't deceiving me. There was huge support for Kerry across the western suburbs and Bush support was dampened if not muted. So at least in this part of Pennsylvania, formerly red areas are trending blue.
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette is claiming that the red counties are getting redder and the blue ones bluer. Probably true as a statewide generalization, but not the case in Chester county, which has gone purple. The question will be, which side will extend its reach into the other's territory? What I'm seeing is blue marching through the western suburbs into Chester county. I don't think it's going to make much headway into Lancaster county, but I do see opportunities for blue advances farther north, particularly Berks county. Berks got redder this year, but the margin was tight and blues might have demographics on their side. I'll see if I can find some population trend analysis to factor into the equation.
Be wary of the spin meisters telling you how the country is trending. Look to your own neighborhood, study the numbers, make your own conclusions.