Pittsburgh region sees lowest presidential primary turnout since 2012

It’s not your imagination if your polling place seemed emptier than usual on Tuesday.

This week’s primary ranks as one of the sleepiest in recent memory during a presidential election year in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties.

Not since 2012 have the counties seen lower voter turnout for a primary when contenders for the White House were also on the ballot.

Allegheny County’s voter turnout stood at about 32% as of Wednesday, with only a few more precincts left to count. That’s lower than during the 2020 primary. And Westmoreland County didn’t break 30%, also lower than four years ago.

Political experts and party leaders chalked up the depressed turnout to a lack of competitive races at the top of the ballot.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump were already the presumptive nominees before Tuesday, and the state’s U.S. Senate race had only one candidate from each party.

Lew Irwin, a Duquesne University political science professor, said despite the primary being mostly low energy, there are still a few useful takeaways, including encouraging signs for Democrats, some work ahead for Republicans, and intriguing protest votes against Biden and Trump.

But, Irwin added, these dynamics will shift dramatically as the general election approaches in November.

“I do think the lower turnout is about how there were very few marquee races,” Irwin said. “I don’t think this is an indicator for what will happen in the fall.”

Divergent turnout

In 2012, turnout for Allegheny and Westmoreland counties was anemic — around 20% for both.

That was the last time Democrats had an incumbent in the White House.

The difference between 2012 and this year was that on Tuesday local Democrats had higher turnout rates than Republicans, which is a bit of an anomaly, said Irwin.

Typically, a party has higher turnout rates in primaries when the leader of the opposing party is president, according to Irwin.

That was the case in 2012, when local Republicans saw higher turnout than Democrats in the spring elections.

In 2012, when Democrat Barack Obama was president, more than 26% of Republicans voted in the primary compared to under 20% of Democrats in Allegheny County. In Westmoreland County, 27% of GOP voters turned out versus 19% of Democrats.

This year, Democrats turned out about 33% of their party’s registered voters in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, while Republicans in Allegheny turned out 26% of their registered voters. In Westmoreland, Republican turnout hit 28%.

“There is clearly still more enthusiasm out there among the Democratic base than Republican base,” said Irwin, noting that Democratic turnout has been up ever since the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned Roe V. Wade in June 2022.

He said abortion rights are keeping voters highly motivated in the Pittsburgh area and across the state.

Local Republicans rejected that idea, however. They blamed low turnout on the lack of competitive GOP primary races.

Bill Bretz, chairman of the Westmoreland County Republican Committee, said low voter turnout was expected.

“I’m sure if we had contested primaries there would have been far greater turnout,” Bretz said.

Sam DeMarco, the head of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County, said the fact that Trump and David McCormick, the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate, were presumptive nominees was a huge factor in low Republican turnout.

DeMarco also said Republicans had virtually no high-profile races, noting there were no competitive congressional contests in the region. Democrats, on the other hand, were voting in contentious races in the 12th and 14th Congressional Districts.

“I would be more worried from the Democratic side, than the Republicans,” DeMarco said. “The fact that many of their down-ballot races had competition, and their turnout was also low, should be concerning.”

Michelle McFall, Westmoreland County’s Democratic chairman, said the local congressional primaries helped boost Democratic turnout a bit, but nowhere near what the impact would have been from a contested presidential or Senate primary.

Sam Hens-Greco, chairman of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee, said while Democrats had more contested races than Republicans, there were only four local contest with competitors in Allegheny County.

Hens-Greco noted that local Democratic turnout was still higher than the Republican showing, and he expects turnout to increase for the November election.

Protest votes

Both Biden and Trump received overwhelming majorities of their respective voter bases, but the incumbent outperformed his predecessor.

With more than 95% of the statewide vote in, Biden received about 928,000 — over 88% of Pennsylvania’s Democratic voters. Trump got more than 790,000 votes, or 82% of Republicans.

Each candidate also attracted a sizable protest vote, Irwin said.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley received nearly 157,000 votes statewide despite dropping out of the contest nearly two months ago.

Haley received about 4,500 votes in Westmoreland County and over 12,700 votes in Allegheny County. She won several Republican precincts in Pittsburgh and over-performed in dozens of districts in the county’s North Hills and South Hills.

“I think Republicans are looking at these results and probably have concerns,” Irwin said. “The Haley voters were pretty motivated. Those protest votes were concentrated in the suburbs, and they will be the battleground in the fall.”

DeMarco said he expects turnout to increase when voters understand more is on the line.

“November is when it counts, and with most people saying that we headed in the wrong direction as a country, they will recognize that it is time for change in the White House,” said DeMarco, citing polling that shows a large majority of voters are dissatisfied.

Biden also stirred a significant number of protest voters.

Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips ended his presidential election bid in March around the same time as Haley, and he still received over 68,000 votes in the Democratic primary.

There was also the “uncommitted” write-in campaign to protest Biden’s policies concerning Israel.

So far, there have been more than 58,800 write-in votes in Pennsylvania, with a few small counties yet to report their tallies, according to Widener University professor Quinn Yeargain.

It’s unclear how many of those write-in votes are part of the “uncommitted” campaign, as counties don’t break out specific information about write-in votes unless they have a chance to win. Typically, coordinated write-in campaigns receive a large majority of write-in totals, but not all.

The protest vote against Biden was tens of thousands of votes fewer than the one against Trump, which Irwin said is notable.

Hens-Greco, the head of the Allegheny County Democrats, acknowledged the Biden protest vote. He said that he expects the president’s campaign to woo those voters come November, but he also believes Democrats have a chance to convert Haley voters to Biden voters in the fall.

Hens-Greco said he believes that protest votes against Trump signal a “deeper dissatisfaction” with the former president.

The Biden campaign has already started campaigning on that issue. Nikki Lu, Biden’s Pennsylvania campaign manager, said state Republicans are rejecting Trump because of his attacks on Social Security and Medicare, and rights like access to abortion and reproductive health care.

“While Donald Trump has done nothing to win these voters back, our team is dedicated to reaching voters in every corner of the commonwealth,” Lu said.

More mail-in

Use of mail-in ballots was up in the primary.

Democrats still dominate mail-in voting. In Allegheny County, about 46% of primary ballots were mail-in, a 5% increase compared to 2022. More than 48% of Westmoreland County Democrats voted by mail this year.

Only about 15% of Republicans in Westmoreland County voted by mail. About 23% of Allegheny County Republicans cast mail-in ballots, up from 14% in 2022.

DeMarco lauded the increase and said his efforts to get more local Republicans to vote by mail are working. He said it’s nice to see Republicans gain some ground on Democrats, but they’re still short of his goal of at least 35%.

“We are continuing to make progress, but still far from where we need to be,” DeMarco said.

Democrats are also confident the growth in their use of mail-in ballots can keep pace with Republicans.

There were nearly 20,000 voters in Allegheny County that applied for mail-in ballots, but did not return them. Hens-Greco said that was a big opportunity for Democrats to increase their turnout.

Staff writer Rich Cholodofsky contributed to this report.