And while Toomey didn’t run too far behind Trump in those counties, more than made up for by running ahead of him elsewhere, the GOP candidates for the state offices each ran 10-11 points behind there. I was really hoping they’d at least get AG.
Both Toomey and Ron Johnson were able to run just about as well as Romney in high-income areas while doing much better than Romney in blue-collar and rural areas (albeit not nearly as well as Trump ran there), thus allowing them to outoerform Trump statewide. The trick for Republicans nationwide need to harness enough of Trump’s populism to do well in blue-collar and rural areas (although it might be difficult to replicate Trump’s success; it truly was a historic performance for him) without going so far down the populist path so that it impedes them from retaining traditional GOP margins among economically conservative voters. Both Johnson and Toomey threaded the needle pretty well, but we need candidates in 2018 and beyond to do even better because demographics are not moving in our favor.