FINAL Yard sign report from Butler County, PA + western Armstrong County + predictions

[Joe Cool]

Butler is the county north of Allegheny County where Pittsburgh is located. The GOP has a +27% registration advantage in Butler County.
This report is limited to the City of Butler area in the central part and southern Butler county plus western Armstrong County which is to the east of Butler. Northern Butler is pretty rural and I have not traveled to that part of the county this election season so I am not going to make any assumptions about that area.
Never in my life have I seen so many signs for Democratic candidates (Josh Shapiro for governor, John Fetterman for Senate, Dan Pastore for Congress, and Robert Vigue for state rep in the southwestern part of the county) as I have this year in Butler County. It truly is remarkable, especially in the southwestern part of the county which is the most growing, affluent, and diverse, though Butler County is still more than 90% white. Josh Shapiro signs are everywhere in the southwestern part of the county and outnumber, though not greatly, signs for election denier and Nazi Doug Mastriano.
This past weekend, more Mastriano signs popped up in and around the city of Butler but my guess it was at most a handful of people who placed those signs since they are in public places. The Mastriano signs in and around the city Butler are mainly standalone and rarely accompany Oz for Senate signs. The Republican signs are in the normal places where you seem them each year but the Democratic signs have popped up in locations where they have never been seen before this year. Another thing I have noticed is that many people who had Trump signs in 2016 and 2020 do not have any signs for Republican candidates this year. The thing the pollsters might be missing is that many people might have voted because Trump was on the ballot in 2016 and 2020 but those people might elect not to vote this year due to a lack of an exciting candidate for them. The lack of only voted because Trump was on the ballot voters might be one of the story lines from tomorrow's election.
Since I ventured through the western part of Armstrong County in the last day, there are a lot more Republican signs (especially Mastriano but many were lacking the accompanying Oz signs) but there were a few Democratic signs in places where Democratic signs have not appeared in the past.
If Shapiro and Fetterman can gain just a few percent of votes in heavily Republican areas of Pennsylvania compared to past elections for Democratic candidates, their elections won't be close. Mastriano is going to lose badly in the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas. His only hope is a strong rural turnout and that probably won't help him enough even if that does happen. Even though he is stronger in the polls, there is zero enthusiasm for Oz among Republicans. The only reason people will vote for him is because they are voting against Fetterman or he has an R beside his name. Mastriano actually has more enthusiasm among Republicans compared to Oz but the former is doing worse in the polls.


I hate to make predictions, but Shapiro wins and it isn't close. Fetterman wins by an amount that surprises all of the out-of-state pundits who don't realize he is actually from Pennsylvania and is a sort of folk figure in the state.