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Without Philly in 2020, Trump would have won Pennsylvania with 53% of the vote. With it, he lost with 49%. Biden won Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes โ and Philadelphia by 470,000.
Philly โ on the opposite side of Pennsylvania from Pittsburgh โ is the USโ sixth-largest city, with 1.6M people in its city limits and 6.2M in its metro area. It dwarfs the size of any other city in Pennsylvania, with 5x the population of Pittsburgh. The economy of its metro area equates to about half that of the entire state.
Philly has experienced industrial decline. Unlike Pittsburgh, though, its economy was more diversified and less reliant on a handful of large companies. It lost 25% of its population between 1950 and 2020, although the trend may have since reversed: Between 2010 and 2020, the population rose 5.1%. Several universities are based in Philly, as well as companies like Comcast, Dupont Chemical, and numerous financial firms.
Phillyโs population โ overwhelmingly educated, black, or union โ makes it Republicansโ kryptonite. The city hasnโt had a Republican mayor since 1852. In 2020, Biden won 60% of the vote in Allegheny County, around Pittsburgh. He won 81% in Philadelphia county.
So how were people feeling about this election? What did they care about?

Near a wealthy neighborhood near the trendy South Street, a middle-aged woman and life-long Philly resident said the city is feeling โscaredโ about the vote.
While everything in the city isnโt great โ she blamed the city for treating homeless people โunfairlyโ by trying to keep them off the streets โ she said Philly residents โhave no choiceโ regarding the election: โItโs scary.โ
We ran into one of those homeless people less than a block away.
โFuck Philadelphia,โ he said. โIt is a bunch of faggots.โ

On nearby South Street โ a hipster area lined with restaurants, dive bars, record stores, and sex shops โ we interviewed a native of inner-city Philly who had worked at one of these places. He had just moved back to Philly after spending four years in Delaware.
โI left for my daughter,โ he said, naming a few problems: Violence, schools, โeverything.โ
โPhilly is a slippery slope,โ he said, adding that itโs gotten worse: โJust the crime, just the dumb stuff that happens. You can't really be as comfortable or have as much fun no more.โ
Philly has seen a rise in gun violence, which he blamed on kids and parents: โYou don't see many 25, 26-year-olds really being in trouble. It's the 16, 15-year-olds and their parents who don't know where they at, don't care where they at.โ
The solution, he said, was โParents actually taking care of their kids.โ
But, he added, it โisnโt as bad as people try to put it out to be. In my opinion, and I tell people this all the time, I'm 28 and I've never had a bad run-in with cops, bad run-in with peopleโ
He didnโt care who won the election โ as long as it wasnโt Trump.

That man told us that to understand Philly, we needed to interview people in the West and North. The south was mostly white-collar people; north and northeast Philadelphia are โpoorerโฆmost dangerous,โ he said, while West Philly is โa mix.โ
So we headed there to see how inner-city voters felt about the upcoming election.
The first man we met โ a security guard at one of Phillyโs universities โย had a strong opinion. He saidโฆ
The rest of this story contains our on-the-ground coverage from Pennsylvania. Itโs available only for premium subscribers. Subscribe to get full access here. Once you do so, you can find all our full articles here.
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