How Allegheny County Democrats fared compared to Harris

Allegheny County has long been a bastion of Democratic voters and was a key base of support for Kamala Harris on Tuesday. The Democrats running for Senate and U.S. House of Representatives this year had a mixed record compared to those at the top, with one outperforming Harris among county voters, one doing about the same and one underperforming.

But Senator Bob Casey was the only one of the three to lose his race, albeit narrowly. Overall, Casey and Harris performed similarly across the country. Their vote margins were within 5% of each other in more than 98% of the county’s precincts, although each had support where each outperformed the other. (Election results are preliminary and not yet certified. There are approximately 18,000 ballots not yet included in the county’s vote totals, including more than 12,500 provisional ballots, more than 3,500 election night ballots and nearly 2,000 foreign and military ballots.)

Casey performed slightly worse than Harris in Pittsburgh’s urban core and in many of Allegheny County’s wealthiest suburbs, including Fox Chapel, Pine, Marshall, Mt. Lebanon, Upper St. Clair and Sewickley.

Casey fared better in many of the working-class river communities, especially in the Mon Valley, but also in communities such as Stowe and Neville Island. He had better margins in the most rural corners of the province, such as Findlay, West Deer and Forward.

Congresswoman Summer Lee, meanwhile, underperformed Harris in about two-thirds of the districts where they both appeared on the ballot. Lee even outperformed Harris in some areas where Harris was already better than Casey – such as some neighborhoods in Pittsburgh’s urban core and the North Side. Lee also outperformed Harris in some Casey strongholds, such as Mon Valley towns like McKeesport and Clairton.

But Lee performed about 10 to 20 percentage points worse than Harris in Pittsburgh’s East End neighborhoods known for their large Jewish populations. Lee has been criticized by some members of the Jewish community for her public statements about the war in Gaza.

Lee also fared significantly worse in the affluent suburb of Upper St. Clair (5 to 10 percentage points) and other suburbs such as Bethel Park and Plum (about 1 to 5 percentage points).

Chris Deluzio, by contrast, outperformed Harris in about 75% of the county’s precincts, with particular strength in river towns like Stowe and Robinson, as well as the eastern parts of Penn Hills and Harrison. But Deluzio’s improvements were small: his totals fell within 5% of Harris’ vote share in nine of 10 districts.

Deluzio did well at Aspinwall, where he recently left, but underperformed Harris at Fox Chapel, his new home. He also underperformed in Pine, where his opponent Rob Mercuri lives, as well as in several nearby communities, such as Marshall.

Deluzio’s district also includes Beaver County; Lee’s district includes parts of Westmoreland County.