According to opinion researchers at Pennsylvania’s Franklin & Marshall College, the issue of fracking has deepened the schism between Democrats and Republicans in the Keystone State.
Pennsylvania’s voter registration statistics have shifted rightward (from Democrat to Republican), which has been traced to shifts in the affiliation of working-class communities, particularly those located in the northeastern and southwestern parts of the state. New research offers a more direct cause for the shift: the decline of coal mining and the rise of shale gas development.
Working-class (blue-collar) voters have embraced fracking, ignoring the whining and hysterical comments by radical environmentalists. One thing the report below won’t tell you (that we will) is *why* this is happening. It’s because common-sense folks, like blue-collar workers, are using their common sense.
They see that there have been tens of thousands of shale wells drilled, and it hasn’t resulted in massive medical issues or death, the way the left falsely proclaims. Blue-collar voters are using their own eyes and brains and have rejected the false narrative of the left. It’s causing them to leave the Democrat Party and to begin voting Republican. Hallelujah!
The report from Franklin & Marshall that we find fascinating may be found here, but the following are some key excerpts:
There has been a rightward shift in Pennsylvania’s voter registration statistics that has been traced to shifts in the affiliation of working-class communities, particularly those located in the northeastern and southwestern parts of the state. These shifting party loyalties have been attributed to class, culture, de-industrialization, economics, immigration, institutional failure, political isolation, loneliness, race, religion, resentment, rural consciousness, status loss, or some combination of these factors. There really is no shortage of culprits.
Some new research offers a more direct cause: the decline of coal mining and the rise of shale gas development. This research argues that many traditional Democrats blamed the Democratic Party’s support for environmental regulation for the decline in coal production and the economic consequences that followed, and consequently started voting for Republicans.
The main argument is that when voters could not see firsthand the switch from coal to gas in power generation, it was simple for Republicans and interest groups to blame environmental regulations as the reason that coal production declined and that local economies collapsed. Coal-turned-fracking communities in the northeast, and particularly the southwest, experienced this transition.
Fracking has thus become politically and culturally symbolic for many Pennsylvania voters— a means of restoring a dignified life for smaller, more rural communities that have struggled.
An advertisement aired during the 2020 campaign by the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action used an oil and gas worker to put it succinctly. “When Joe Biden says he’d eliminate fracking, he’s talking about my job; he’s talking about our future.”
The choice is between supporting local communities or protecting the environment from unknown or future risks, and serves as shorthand for the different values held by working-class and non- working class voters.
Fracking Attitudes: What do the Data Show?
Public attitudes toward natural gas extraction have shifted and become polarized, although being nearer to natural gas development affects partisan perceptions. More voters in 2024 felt the economic benefits of natural gas development outweighed the environmental risks of fracking. This is a change from 2020, when more voters thought the environmental risks were larger than the economic benefits. This is also a change from surveys prior to 2020 when there was no clear consensus about risks and benefits.
Given the attitudinal differences and perhaps the cultural stakes, party registration has changed dramatically in counties with a history of active wells and even more sharply in counties with the most active fracking. Democratic registrations have declined by 18 and 32 percent while Republican registrations have increased by 31 and 39 percent since 2000 in these areas (Table 1).
Table 1. Party Registration by County-Level Fracking Activity.
Editor’s Note: These numbers are simply staggering. What they illustrate is a recognition by the working class that the Democrat Party has completely sold them out and adopted wealthy elites and trust-funders as their new favored constituency. They couldn’t care less about working families, their needs, or their values. Instead, they are catering to the special interests of spoiled children, an intellectual class rabidly infected with the fatal conceit, and the villains of corporatism.
Thectargeting if a specific industry production practice is truly sick. Why don’t the leftist greenies target the sterilization of canned food containers? The lies being told and tte false claims being made are just immoral. What should happen is that those guilty of false claims should be held accountable. Only in rare cases is this being done. The voters have the ultimate judgement when they throw the anti-human leftists out of office. Vote wisely, your personal quality of life is at stake.
Thectargeting if a specific industry production practice is truly sick. Why don’t the leftist greenies target the sterilization of canned food containers? The lies being told and tte false claims being made are just immoral. What should happen is that those guilty of false claims should be held accountable. Only in rare cases is this being done. The voters have the ultimate judgement when they throw the anti-human leftists out of office. Vote wisely, your personal quality of life is at stake.