Yard sign report from Butler County, PA

[Joe Cool]

Last edited Sun Oct 30, 2022, 07:22 PM - Edit history (1)

Butler is the county north of Allegheny where Pittsburgh is located. The county has a +27% GOP voter registration.
I can say with all sincerity in at least the county from the city of Butler in the very center of the county and south to the Allegheny County line that I have never seen so many signs for the Demoratic candidates (Josh Shapiro for governor, John Fetterman for Senate, and Dan Pastore for Congress). In some years, the GOP to Democratic sign ratio might be 5-to-1 and I am not exaggerating. This year, in at least in the central and southern parts of the county, the signs are about even with maybe a slight advantage to GOP candidates. It truly is amazing how many signs for Democratic candidates are now in Butler County.
Today, for the first time since 2004 when I put signs out for John Kerry, I placed three signs in my yard for Shapiro, Fetterman, and Pastore. When I put a sign out for Kerry in 2004 it was in my yard for about two days before someone ripped it out and I found it in the street by my house. I put the sign back in its former place in my yard and it was gone within 24 hours.
As previously mentioned, Butler is a heavily Republican county but that is slowly starting to change due to demographic changes in the southern part of the county. The townships bordering the Allegheny County line have definitely become more affluent in the last few decades and are becoming more diverse though Butler County is still about 94% white.
People, if Butler has this much enthusiasm for Democratic candidates in a heavily Republican county then there is zero reason to be pessimistic about next week´s election. GOTV!

[FakeNoose]

1. K & R Great news!

Thanks

[FarPoint]

2. I grew up in Mars....

Still a surprising number of life long locals their and strong Democrats....

[SheltieLover]

3. Excellent! 👏👏👏👏ty for sharing!

[LakeArenal]

4. When I worked in 2018 Dems made us pay for yard signs.

Up to ten dollars. In Rural WI the office might not have any. Nobody wants to pay in rural WI.

Meanwhile GOOP gives out massive signs depending your traffic drive by.

It was so frustrating. I had to drive to Sun Prairie for both state and national.

[Joe Cool]

5. All of the yard signs were FREE courtesy of the campaigns...

...but I still donated $10. I got the last Dan Pastore sign.

[LakeArenal]

6. Donate is great. But I had to refuse people a sign that I knew couldn't afford one.

The State Party said yard signs weren’t the best use of money. I thought they were crazy. But Evers won so we will never know.
I met Barnes. He’s a great guy. Thoughtful.

[NullTuples]

12. California Dem Party has done that since 2008, but maybe it's by county?

In my county & all those around us, when one looks at the post election fine grained maps it's not a matter of blue v red, it's a matter of how dark is the blue. I could understand them not wanting to "waste" hundreds of thousands on counties like us.

But not where the races are tight, that just doesn't make sense. A lot of people are very social, and seeing lots of signs for a candidate does influence them.

[Wicked Blue]

7. Son-in-law grew up in Butler nt

[SallyHemmings]

8. Thanks for the much needed welcome news!

[RockCreek]

9. Wonderful!

I lived in Pittsburgh from about 2005-10. When I saw Butler, I went "uh oh". Wonderful to have encouraging news from there. Thank you!

[Joe Cool]

10. Yard signs don't vote

But the two main things that I have noticed about yard signs this year is the aforementioned overwhelming number of yard signs for Democratic candidates that were never there in the past and the seemingly lack of yard signs for Republican candidates aside from the normal locations and people.
The important thing is that yard signs don´t vote and an unenthusiastic vote counts the same as an enthusiastic vote. The GOP candidates will win Butler County but if the vote is just chipped away by just a handful of percentage points and this is repeated in other normally Republican counties it will be a big win for Josh Shapiro for governor and John Fetterman for Senate.

[MyOwnPeace]

11. That's great - but............

the sole remaining newspaper in town, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, today cast their support for Ooz.
Yes, even though Ooz is from New Jersey and Fetterman spent years in Braddock working in GOVERNMENT (not TV sales), they support Ooz.
This 'paper' has been swinging to the right - and the sewer - for some time. They have gone from 'daily' to tri-weekly - they have cut many home deliveries (I had been a 35-year subscriber - dumped!), they fired an award-winning political cartoonist (Rob Rogers - he appears here on DU in many cartoon reviews) for too many 'cartoons' about IQ45 - and now, this.

After a long protest about losing my daily 'paper' - I finally signed up for digital coverage.

With this support of THE WRONG GUY - I am done.


Rob Rogers: https://robrogers.com/about-rob-rogers/

[Deminpenn]

13. My local Dems had a meet and greet a few weeks ago

They had free yard signs for the major candidates, Gov, Sen, Congress.

I still haven't seen many signs in front of homes `for Rs even this late in the campaign season. There are a lot of signs for both parties along the roads and at intersections, but those are put there by the parties themselves.