To win the Presidency, one must usually carry electoral vote-rich swing states of Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. 2008 will be no different, Democrats must win the Keystone State; while the GOP must bank on Ohio, since Pennsylvania last voted Republican in 1988. Pennsylvania was at least competitive, forcing Democrats to spend inordinate resources to win. Will 2008 be different?
 
The wisdom was Democrats won Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (Allegheny County) while Republicans won central Pennsylvania, known as the "T." However, GOP leaders couldn’t figure out why they kept losing first Presidential, then other statewide elections, culminating with the 2006 Democratic blow-out as Senator Rick Santorum and Lynn Swann suffered the most lopsided losses in recent political history.
 
Reality is that the traditionally Republican counties failed to show up at the polls and when they did, failed to vote straight ticket. Elections are measured by two benchmarks. The first is TLI, Turnout Loyalty Index, determined by the votes won by the party’s leading candidate divided by the total number of the party’s registered electors. Ticket splitting is measured by PCI, Partisan Consistency Index, the difference between the highest and lowest vote percentages won by the party’s candidates.

Historically, Pennsylvania commanded a 75% Republican TLI, while Democrats mobilized only 60% of their registered voters. However, as the Republican registration started shrinking, winning elections by simply mobilizing more GOP voters was no longer the ace in the hole. While GOP Treasurer Barbara Hafer won in 2000 with a 71.0% Republican TLI, Bush was unable to win Pennsylvania four years later with a 70.5% Republican TLI. Today, Republican share of registered voters fell to 38.3% for this year’s Presidential primary, the worst since the GOP was established in 1856.
 
In 2006, 14 traditionally Republican counties became swing counties, as the margin between Democrats and Republicans shrank to the point that Independents held the decisive hand. The traditional Republican "T" disappeared. Every traditional GOP county in eastern Pennsylvania become solid or leaning Democratic, joining Philadelphia and Pittsburgh’s surrounding rust-belt counties.
 
Now, after a six-week primary hiatus, the Clinton-Obama battle royale is barreling down onto Pennsylvania, which for the first time in a quarter of a century, due a late primary date, will actually participate in the Presidential sweepstakes. The crush of new and party-changing voter registrations is so unprecedented they are still counting registrations after the March 24th cut-off date. The impact has exacerbated Pennsylvania’s Democratic tendencies. In 2006 there were 36 solid and leaning Republican counties, now there’s only 25; in 2006 there were 16 solid and leaning Democratic counties, now there’s 28.
 
The key behind the newly found Democratic strength is the four traditionally Republican suburban Philadelphia’s Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties, which with the city, represents a 911,340 Democratic voter margin, which cannot be offset by the Republican’s traditional strength in the T which dwindled to 87,624 in 2006, but now a 91,572 Democratic lead.
 
Obviously, not all voters appear at the polls. Despite 1 million registered Democratic lead, computing each party’s TLI average, the Democratic margin is reduced to 513,394 votes. However, the 697,777 Democratic voter margin out of the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh regions is only marginally offset by the GOP’s 193,838 voters from its traditional rural counties. Only if the Republicans achieve their historical 83.4% TLI, can the GOP win Pennsylvania, albeit with a razor-thin 37,488 margin, producing 474,582 voters throughout the balance of the state to offset the Democratic strongholds in the southeast and southwest of 437,364 votes.
 
However, in the traditional GOP suburban Philadelphia counties, Republican TLI has plummeted in half. From a historical 79.8% mean Republican TLI in Presidential and gubernatorial elections, the long-time GOP bastion, Montgomery County, fell to 33.3% in 2006. Republican TLI for all four suburban Philadelphia counties for the last five elections is 49.0%, less than half of the turnout Keystone Republicans require to win. The Democrats have a combined four-county 92.5% TLI, one-third greater than its historical 66.8% Democratic TLI.
 
The saving grace is in Pennsylvania, 40% of registered Democrats are academically labeled as "Misaligned" voters, the "Reagan Democrats" or similar local monikers. 22% of registered Republican voters are likewise misaligned, the so-called RINOs. (Although 40% of Independents are misaligned, voting behavior is more difficult to statistically predict, accordingly we split Independent votes in half). The average Republican TLI, limited only to registered Republicans, still results in a 513,394 Democratic victory margin. But if we combine loyal Republicans with misaligned Democrats, Pennsylvania can produce a 656,724 Republican victory margin.
 
As many readers know, the Trustees of the Republican Leadership Trust are developing Republican All in One^™ Political Suite,^™ technology that will jumpstart Republican TLI by both improving voter turnout among registered Republicans and identifying potential GOP votes among misaligned Democrats. All reviewers monitoring development concur there is no software even remotely rivals Republican All in One.^™ However, such technology is useless if there is no revitalized Republican grassroots organization essential for McCain to be competitive for Pennsylvania’s 27 electoral votes. And while we haven’t crunched the numbers, no one can dispute Ohio is the same story.

KEY to Map Legend. 
Solid Blue: Democratic.
Light Blue: Leaning Democratic. 
Solid Red: Republican.
Light Red: Leaning Republican.
Yellow:  swing county where both parties within ten points but under 50% of total registered voters.