Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, is part of the Harrisburg Metropolitan Statistical Area and is located in south central Pennsylvania. The county's political landscape reflects the state's mix of Republican and Democratic leanings. Locally, the county is represented by two senators in the Pennsylvania State Senate and three representatives in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. All are affiliated with either the Republican or Democratic parties and work to ensure that Dauphin County residents have a voice when it comes to state legislation. In addition, Dauphin County has an Executive Office and Board of Commissioners that works to manage the county's resources. They are responsible for developing policy on issues such as public safety, health care services, transportation, land use planning, and economic development. Each Commissioner is elected to a four-year term and serves at their pleasure. Furthermore, Dauphin County holds municipal elections every other year for mayor/president offices in local townships or boroughs. Candidates for these offices must be affiliated with one of Pennsylvania’s major parties in order to qualify for ballot access. Overall, politics plays an important role in Dauphin County as residents elect officials who will make decisions that affect their lives both now and in the future.
The political climate in Dauphin County, PA is somewhat liberal.
In Dauphin County, PA 53.4% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 44.9% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.7% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Dauphin county remained moderately Democratic, 53.4% to 44.9%.
Dauphin county voted Democratic in the four most recent Presidential elections, after 2000 and 2004 went Republican.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Dauphin County, PA is somewhat liberal.
Harrisburg-Carlisle Metro Area is leaning conservative.
Pennsylvania is leaning liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Dauphin, Pennsylvania: r r d d d d
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Dauphin County, PA
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 16,153 contributions totaling $11,833,338 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $733 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 3,663 contributions totaling $909,734 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $248 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)