Pennsylvania's 4th Congressional District

Population, Major Cities

Pennsylvania's 4th Congressional District is located in the southeast corner of the state. The district includes parts of Berks and Montgomery counties and has a population of 710,198, according to Ballotpedia. The district's major cities are Pottstown, Norristown, and Jenkintown.

Demographics

A word of caution: due to the recent redistricting in Pennsylvania, there is not a lot of information about the demographics of the new 4th Congressional District. The only website claiming to have the correct statistics is Ballotpedia, but it is possible that these statistics are actually about Pennsylvania's old 13th Congressional District, as their source is 2010 data from the U.S. Census Bureau while the redistricting occurred in 2018.

• Gender: 49.4% Male, 50.6% Female
• Race: 84.92% White, 7.95% Black
• Ethnicity: 6.1% Hispanic
• Unemployment: 9.3%
• Median household income: $54,291
• High school graduation rate: 89.1%
• College graduation rate: 24.5%

Major Industries & Companies

The key industries in Pennsylvania, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development, are natural gas, manufacturing, agribusiness, tourism, life sciences, and plastics. Pennsylvania has consistently been the second-largest national gas producer (Texas being number one). Their manufacturers are quick to boast about their steel contribution to the Golden Gate Bridge, Empire State Building, and the Hoover Dam. They have the most food-processing companies and are home to the largest hardwood forest in the United States—and they grow over 10% of America's Christmas trees! Over $41 billion is injected into Pennsylvania annually by tourists. The first American hospital was established in Philadelphia and their legacy in the life sciences lives on. Natural gas production is crucial in the plastics industry; therefore, it is a given that a state with such a large emphasis on natural gas would also excel in the plastics industry.

Pennsylvania's Department of Labor & Industry Center for Workforce Information & Analysis ranks the largest employers and industries based on number of employees. The top five industries in Montgomery County are restaurants, schools, management, hospitals, and employment services. The top five industries in Pennsylvania are restaurants, schools, hospitals, family services, and universities. The top five employers in Montgomery County are Merck Sharp & Dohme Corporation, Abington Memorial Hospital, the State Government, Main Line Hospitals, Inc., and Giant Food Stores, LLC. The top five employers in Pennsylvania are Wal-Mart Associates, Inc., the Trustees of the University of PA, the City of Philadelphia, the US Postal Service, and Giant Food Stores, LLC.

Party affiliation

The 2018 Cook Partisan Voter Index for Pennsylvania's 4th Congressional District was D+7, which, according to Ballotpedia, means that "in the previous two presidential elections, this district's results were 7 percentage points more Democratic than the national average." The 2017 Cook Partisan Voter Index for Pennsylvania's 13th Congressional District (the closest geographically to the new 4th District) was D+15, with Trump receiving 32% of the vote and Clinton receiving 65%. In the 2012 election, Romney received 33% of the vote and Obama received 66%.

FiveThirtyEight gave Pennsylvania's 4th Congressional District an elasticity score of 0.98 for 2018. According to Ballotpedia, this means that "for every 1 point the national political mood moved toward a party, the district was expected to move 0.98 points toward that party." Pennsylvania received an elasticity score of 1.00.

Gerrymandering

In February 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court announced a new congressional district map. The Inquirer explained that with the enactment of the new map, "districts more closely align with county lines, and only 13 counties are split among two or three districts. By contrast, under the last map, enacted by the legislature in 2011, more than twice as many counties were split among multiple districts." There is no question that the new district map favors Democrats, which may cause Republicans to challenge the map in the near future.