When former President Barack Obama comes to Pittsburgh on Thursday to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris in the home stretch for next month’s election, he will be returning to a very different Western Pennsylvania from the one he won robustly in 2008 and less so in 2012.
In 2008, Obama ran on a message of aspiration, using a slogan of hope and change to create a coalition of working-class white people long part of the New Deal Democrats, minorities, young people, and educated professionals.
In that race against Republican John McCain, he won 18 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. Here in the west, he won Cambria and Erie and came within 100 votes in Fayette, and he earned a whopping 57% in Allegheny. Overall, in Pennsylvania, Obama earned 3,276,363 raw votes, or 54.47%, over McCain’s 2,655,885, or 44.15%.
By the time he ran in 2012, Obama’s hope and change…
