Democrats appear to keep Centre County blue in presidential election, but Trump posts big gains

Despite how it looked on Election Night, unofficial election results show Centre County voters favored Kamala Harris and kept the county blue for the fifth consecutive presidential election.

Those unofficial results showed Harris outpaced Republican President-elect Donald Trump by 1,776 votes as of Wednesday. The tally will almost certainly change as the county canvasses mail-in, military, overseas and provisional ballots in the coming days.

Centre County Democratic Committee Chair Margie Swoboda expressed appreciation Thursday for all of the staffers who worked to win over voters, saying she is "eternally grateful for the work that went into this campaign here in Centre County."

But she also expressed disappointment that the battleground state of Pennsylvania and the rest of the election did not unfold the way Democrats hoped.

In the immediate aftermath of a stinging defeat, Swoboda said Centre County Democrats "obviously didn't hit that mark" with regard to reaching rural voters outside of the State College area.

"We need to do a better job of that," Swoboda said. "We did not get that message out."

She said immigration — one of Trump's top campaign focuses — appeared to be a concern Centre County voters brought into the polling booth. While he was out of office, Trump backed the collapse of a bipartisan border package .

"I'm going to bring it back to the inability to reach those voters and explaining exactly what the policies are," Swoboda said. "We need to do a better job of that. I do know some of the data shows that Trump was able to lessen the margins; we were hoping to widen the margins in our favor and we fell a little short on that. We will know better next time."

Trump's gains in Centre County

Despite appearing like a stronghold for Democrats in a sea of red in central Pennsylvania, Trump made significant gains in Centre County as he did elsewhere nationwide.

Harris was leading Trump by 2.21% in the county, but President Joe Biden's margin in 2020 was more than double at 4.73%. Trump's latest performance tracked far closer to his victorious 2016 campaign, when he trailed Hillary Clinton by only 2.34%.

He's won over more and more voters in Centre County over his three campaigns. Trump won at least 38,545 county votes in the election that returned him to the White House, besting his tallies in 2020 (36,372) and 2016 (35,274).

A message left Wednesday with Centre County Republican Committee Chair Michelle Schellberg went unanswered as of Thursday.

Dan Mallinson, an associate professor of Public Policy and Administration at Penn State-Harrisburg, told the Centre Daily Times in early October that either major party candidate could benefit by visiting Centre County to improve their margin.

Later that month and just 10 days before Election Day, Trump visited the Bryce Jordan Center and spoke to thousands of people for more than an hour.

Campaign visits aside, Mallinson told the CDT on Thursday that there is a more straightforward explanation: Tuesday represented yet another anti-incumbent election.

"We've known all throughout the campaign season that voters are not happy, particularly with the economy, but just sort of with the direction of the country," Mallinson said. "... Harris tried to argue — in an election where people wanted change — that she would be the true change and moving on from both Biden and Trump, but that didn't seem to work.

"Because of how broad the shifts were from 2020 to 2024 in favor of Trump, I'd be cautious to interpret that as a nationwide embrace of Trump and everything Trump stands for. I think it ended up being more of a typical anti-incumbent election. Harris couldn't run away from that."

Trump captured rural PA votes

Harris' performance alone was not drastically different from Biden's. The vice president won at least 40,321 county votes, while Biden won 40,055.

Harris won 41 of the county's 91 precincts, all of which came in Bellefonte or the State College area. The remaining 50 precincts, all of which are rural, voted for Trump.

The unofficial results show Trump winning the Election Day vote by more than 5,600 (30,782 to 25,153) while Harris was winning the mail-in vote by nearly a 2-to-1 margin (15,168 to 7,763). Centre County saw a nearly 30% decrease in votes by mail compared to 2020.

A software snafu delayed the counting of 13,401 mail-in ballots until Wednesday afternoon, a big enough total that led several major TV networks to show Centre County as red on Election Night.

Centre County voters have not tapped a Republican to be president since 2004 when they favored incumbent George Bush over Democratic challenger John Kerry.

Only nine of Pennsylvania's 67 counties appear likely to have voted for Harris, nearly all of which have urban hubs like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Allentown.

In other races on the ballot, unofficial results show Democratic Sen. Bob Casey leading by 1,855 votes in Centre County in his still too-close-to-call contest with Republican Dave McCormick.

But in state row offices, the unofficial results show voters leaned red. Republican Dave Sunday, who won the election for Pennsylvania attorney general, received 39,394 votes in Centre County compared to Democrat Eugene DePasquale's 37,126 votes. Centre County voters also supported Republican Tim Defoor for auditor general and Republican Stacy Garrity for treasurer over their Democratic opponents, following statewide trends.

Here are election results for Pennsylvania races including Senate, Attorney General, more

Finding common ground

State College Mayor Ezra Nanes, a Democrat, acknowledged there is room for his party to improve, but said progressives should remain committed to their core values and not drastically change their platform because of Tuesday's outcome.

"Even if you don't win an election, it can have a positive impact," Nanes said. "I like to make the distinction between winning an election and having a winning campaign. You can have a winning campaign that doesn't always win the election. Sometimes the work takes longer and that's just how it is.

"I think that we should recognize the high level of engagement, but also work very hard to see the human being in front of us even if they disagree and work hard to find that common ground of humanity."

Centre County voters turned out in record-breaking fashion . They cast more than 80,300 votes, a record-high that exceeded the about 78,000 ballots cast in 2020.

This year's turnout rate was at least 73.1%, the highest for a general election in Centre County since 2004.

Pennsylvania is scheduled to have its votes certified by Nov. 25. States are then scheduled to choose their electors for the Electoral College by Dec. 11, and the electors are scheduled to formally vote Dec. 17.

The electoral results are to be formally counted Jan. 6. Inauguration Day is Jan. 20.