It hasn’t been a good year for John Stemler. The brew master and co-founder of Free Will Brewing in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County has had to lay off employees because of the coronavirus pandemic and figures his annual revenue will drop by 25%.
“We’re being very careful about how we operate the business,” he said. “We fear there could be a return to a shutdown, so we are being very, very cautious.”
Economic conditions in the suburban Philadelphia county are front-and-center this fall because it is a battleground within a battleground in the presidential race. Democrat Hillary Clinton beat President Trump in the county in 2016 by less than eight-tenths of a percentage point, while Mr. Trump narrowly won the state.
Bucks, the commonwealth’s fourth-most-populated county, and 11 other Pennsylvania counties are in the top 20% nationally for both increase in unemployment rate from a year earlier and deaths per capita linked to Covid-19, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. The proportion of the state’s counties in both categories is almost four times greater than the next-highest presidential battleground, Michigan.
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Uneven Pain
A Wall Street Journal review of data from more than 3,000 counties shows Pennsylvania has the largest proportion in the top 20% nationally for both increase in unemployment from a year ago and deaths linked to Covid-19 per 1,000 residents among the dozen states where the presidential election is being most heavily contested.
Combined economic and human suffering from Covid-19 pandemic
Uneven Pain
A Wall Street Journal review of data from more than 3,000 counties shows Pennsylvania has the largest proportion in the top 20% nationally for both increase in unemployment from a year ago and deaths linked to Covid-19 per 1,000 residents among the dozen states where the presidential election is being most heavily contested.
Combined economic and human suffering from Covid-19 pandemic
Pennsylvania: All but 16 of the state’s 67 counties recorded year-over-year unemployment rate increases that were in the top 20% nationally.
Counties in top 20% for deaths per 1,000 residents
Top 20% for both unemployment rate increase and death rate
Counties in top 20% for increase in unemployment
Maui County: Largest increase in unemployment rate. Its unemployment rate was 20.7% in August, up from 2.5% a year earlier.
Hancock County: Highest death rate. As of October 18, 5.2 people per 1,000 residents had died.
Counties in top 20% for increase in unemployment
Top 20% for both unemployment rate increase and death rate
Counties in top 20% for deaths per 1,000 residents
Pennsylvania: All but 16 of the state’s 67 counties recorded year-over-year unemployment rate increases that were in the top 20% nationally.
Maui County: Largest increase in unemployment rate. Its unemployment rate was 20.7% in August, up from 2.5% a year earlier.
Hancock County: Highest death rate. As of October 18, 5.2 people per 1,000 residents had died.
Top 20% for both unemployment rate increase and death rate
Counties in top 20% for increase in unemployment
Counties in top 20% for deaths per 1,000 residents
Pennsylvania: All but 16 of the state’s 67 counties recorded year-over-year unemployment rate increases that were in the top 20% nationally.
Maui County: Largest increase in unemployment rate. Its unemployment rate was 20.7% in August, up from 2.5% a year earlier.
Hancock County: Highest death rate. As of October 18, 5.2 people per 1,000 residents had died.
Counties in top 20% for increase in unemployment
Counties in top 20% for deaths per 1,000 residents
Top 20% for both unemployment rate increase and death rate
In the closing days before the Nov. 3 election, both campaigns are signaling through spending and scheduled events that Pennsylvania, with its 20 Electoral College votes, is a top target in their calculations for reaching the 270 needed to capture the White House.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his allies are booked to spend more per electoral vote on television ads in Pennsylvania between now and the campaign’s end than in any other state, data from ad-tracking company Kantar/CMAG shows. Mr. Biden’s campaign and groups backing him have reservations in place for $25 million in TV ads for the state, compared with $14.7 million for Mr. Trump and his allies.
Economic difficulties, some stemming from the pandemic, have put a strain on Bucks County communities such as Bristol, above, and Doylestown, where the Hickory Kitchen was forced to permanently close its doors.
The president visited the state twice in recent weeks, and Mr. Biden, who was born in Pennsylvania and has his campaign headquarters in Philadelphia, filmed an ABC News town hall there Oct. 15. Mr. Biden plans to visit Bucks County on Saturday.
The RealClearPolitics average of Pennsylvania polls has the former vice president leading Mr. Trump—the first Republican presidential candidate to win the state since 1988—by 4.9 percentage points.
The state’s worst economic and health fallout is most heavily concentrated in eastern Pennsylvania, including Bucks and other politically crucial suburbs around Philadelphia. The 9.7% unemployment rate in Bucks is more than double what it was a year ago. The county also ranks seventh in Pennsylvania for Covid-19 related fatalities, with 9.9 per 10,000 residents.
Bucks County is a mix of suburban strip malls, quiet leafy neighborhoods, rural expanses, tourist destinations and manufacturing. Its southern section, known as Lower Bucks, has a large share of the sort of white, working-class voters who make up Mr. Trump’s core supporters.
All but 16 of the state’s 67 counties recorded year-over-year unemployment rate increases that were in the top 20% nationally, the review of more than 3,000 U.S. counties shows.
Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia and Fulton counties—where Mr. Trump recorded his smallest and largest 2016 vote shares in the state, respectively—illustrate the widespread unemployment situation.
Philadelphia County, where the president received 15.4% of the vote, has the state’s highest unemployment rate at 15.4%, up nine points from a year earlier. Fulton County, a mostly rural area in south-central Pennsylvania where he won 84.1% of the vote, has the state’s second-highest rate at 13.7%, an increase of 9.4 percentage points from a year ago.
Founder and brewmaster of Free Will Brewing Co, John Stemler has had to lay off workers because of the coronavirus pandemic.
More than half of the state’s counties had double-digit unemployment in August, the most recent month for which data are available. None of the 11 other top battleground states comes anywhere close to that proportion.
“Very high unemployment, a lot of anxiety and suffering because of the virus,” Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said of the presidential-election environment in his state. “I think that’s what people are going to be making their voting decisions on.”
Among the three incumbent presidents who lost re-election in the last half-century—Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992—all faced national unemployment rates of 7.5% or higher during the September before the election. The September 2020 rate, the last update before the election, was 7.9%.
Patricia Poprik, the Republican Party leader in Bucks County, said she saw no evidence that locals were blaming the president for heightened unemployment rates. “The enthusiasm and the interest is the highest ever, even more than 2016,” she said. “We can’t keep Trump signs in stock.”
Linda Mannherz, a Republican voter who has spent the majority of her life in the county, said she is optimistic about the president’s chances of winning there and nationally because she thinks Mr. Biden is too extreme for the majority of voters. “People do not want radical change,” she said. “They want constant improvement.”
The retired interior-design business owner blames Democrats such as Gov. Tom Wolf for damage done to the economy by pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions. “Remember the people who denied you your livelihood because it didn’t need to be this way,” Ms. Mannherz said she often tells friends.
“People understand this is almost beyond the candidates,” she said. “It’s about a way of living. Are we going to have freedom and liberty, or are we going to be under tyranny and told what to do?”
John Cordisco, the county’s Democratic chairman, said he is seeing more activity in the area from his party than at any time in the past 12 years and also can’t supply enough signs to meet the demand. Democrats have made gains at the local level since Mr. Trump’s election, with the party holding the majority on the county commission for the first time since the late 1980s.
“This is probably the most campaign activity I have seen since the first Obama campaign,” Mr. Cordisco said. “There is a tremendous energy level.”
Tourism and leisure spending is important to the economy of Bucks County, which is home to more than 628,000 people and is a short drive from both Philadelphia and New York City.
Interest in the coming election is high in New Hope.
Paul Bencivengo, president of Visit Bucks County, said revenues for his agency from lodging taxes were down roughly 50% from July through September compared with a year ago, forcing some marketing and staff reductions. “We are concerned about the winter, especially with our restaurant partners,” he said.
One of the county’s top employers, Parx Casino, laid off roughly 2,000 people in mid-April after Mr. Wolf ordered that nonessential businesses halt operations amid the pandemic. The casino reopened in late June and is operating within 50% capacity limits and has brought back roughly 70% of employees, spokeswoman Carrie Nork Minelli said.
Minesh Pathak, executive director of the Lower Bucks County Chamber of Commerce, said he fears additional businesses will close this fall and winter. “Some are not going to be able to make it through this,” he said.
Linda Tabas, owner of a gift and clothing shop in the county, said two women who normally help her aren’t working now because she needs to save money amid lower sales. “It has been stressful to do three people’s jobs all at once, but I refused to close because of this,” she said.
A house in Doylestown. The president of Visit Bucks County said revenues for his agency from lodging taxes were down roughly 50% from July through September compared with a year ago.
Mr. Stemler, the beer brew master, said his business has been able to find some new revenue by shipping beverages across the state. He has about 20 full-time employees now, down from 25 before the pandemic.
After describing himself as a lifelong Republican, Mr. Stemler said he plans to vote for Mr. Biden. “I don’t love either of them, but I think Biden has more of my interests in mind,” he said.
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Write to John McCormick at [email protected]
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