An election of inches

In a divided country, half of America last weekend fell hard for Philadelphia. First, a batch of mail ballot results made public Friday gave former Vice President Joe Biden his first narrow lead over President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. Then another batch of results released Saturday secured victory for Biden in the state, tipping the Electoral College his way.

Biden fans rejoiced with quick takes on social media and exuberance in the street. Trump supporters, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, continued to level false claims of fraud. Philadelphia was victor or villain, depending on your political point of view.

The numbers tell a more textured tale. Trump actually did better in Philadelphia in 2020 than in 2016, when he won almost 109,000 votes (Hillary Clinton won about 584,000 in the overwhelmingly Democratic city.)

While the final 2020 ballots were still being counted in Philadelphia, Trump had logged almost 127,000 votes as of Saturday afternoon, just over 18 percent of the votes in the city.

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, between celebratory calls Saturday with Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, shrugged off Trump’s gains in the city. “That’s fine,” Brady said of the three wards Trump won in the city. “He can win all of them, but they’re not going to call him Mr. President anymore.”

David Thornburgh, president of the Committee of Seventy, a good-government election watchdog group, predicted a continuing battle between Republicans and Democrats over working-class voters. “It was a game of inches,” Thornburg said. “Chip a little off here, chip a little off there.”