President-elect Donald Trump won one in five Philadelphia voters in one of the strongest performances by a Republican presidential candidate in the deep blue city in years, boosting his support in working-class communities of all groups racial.

Despite his victory in Philadelphia, Vice President Kamala Harris failed to garner enough votes in the city — where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 6-1 — to offset Republican gains elsewhere in the state, a key factor in Trump’s decisive statewide victory.

With a few ballots still left to count, Harris won the city with about 78% of the vote, compared to Trump’s 20%. As of Thursday night, she had a 412,000-vote advantage over Trump — if that holds, it would be the narrowest margin for a Democratic presidential candidate in two decades. The right-wing trend was reflected throughout the country, including other major cities, and Trump improved on his 2020 performance in every state that had counted most of its votes.

In total, Philadelphia was on track to move about 2 percentage points to the right. But turnout remained roughly flat compared to 2020 – lower than Democrats had hoped. Harris was on track to receive at least 50,000 fewer votes in the city than the president Joe Biden won in 2020.

Around noon Tuesday, the city’s top Democrats were forecasting record turnout. Mayor Cherelle L.Parker thought the city could provide 650,000 or more votes for Harris. As it turns out, Philadelphia isn’t far off. While some ballots were still being counted, Harris had received 554,000 votes as of Thursday evening.

“I don’t know what happened,” Councilman Jim Harrity, who works with the state and city Democratic Party, said Wednesday. “I am stunned and confused to say the least. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened. We had so many extra people here to do all this work and, to be honest, it didn’t seem to influence anyone.

But Republicans said they knew what happened: City voters were more frustrated with the status quo than Democrats realized, and Harris didn’t separate herself enough from Biden to persuade the electorate that she could change course.

“They did a good job convincing everyone that this race was closer than it was,” said Josh Novotney, a Republican ward leader and political consultant. “What I saw was minority and working-class people taking the bus from all over town to come to the office to pick up Trump signs. »

» LEARN MORE: In blue Philadelphia, working-class voters are turning to Republicans

Trump’s largest base of support in the city is among white, working-class voters. As of Thursday, he was riding high in five of the city’s 66 political precincts — all majority white — and he had about 30 percent of the vote citywide in majority white precincts. And as was the case in 2020, Trump’s best performance in Philadelphia was in the city’s Northeast.

The Republican Party’s most significant growth, however, has been among Latino voters, who have shifted away from the Democratic Party in Philadelphia over the past two election cycles. Trump received 21% of the vote in the city’s majority-Latino precincts, an increase of 15 percentage points from 2016.

Trump only slightly improved his margins in Philadelphia’s majority-black neighborhoods — with just 6 percent in those neighborhoods, down from 2.6 percent eight years ago — despite widespread Democratic concerns about potential losses with black men .

Across the city, support for Trump increased most in the lowest-income neighborhoods. This reality could reinforce Republicans’ analysis that urban voters were primarily concerned about inflation and rising prices, which disproportionately impact the working class and are largely associated with those in power.

“I can see the difference in my refrigerator,” said Brittany Bennett, a 33-year-old mother who lives in Bridesburg. She voted for Trump.

Trump improved where Harris aimed

Harris’ smaller-than-expected margins in Philadelphia are a bitter loss for her campaign, which has invested resources in the city and made a concerted effort to reach voters of color. The campaign had seven offices here, including six in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods.

And of Harris’ 37 visits to Pennsylvania, 15 were in Philadelphia, where she ended her campaign with a star-studded concert on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

His campaign was also reinforced by a large, independent and organized field operation. composed of unions and progressive political organizations. Much of this effort to knock on doors and persuade voters was concentrated in Philadelphia’s working-class neighborhoods.

Trump’s ground game in the city was relatively small and more disjointed, and Harris campaign advisers often said they thought the Democratic operation was superior. Ultimately, this did not seem to sway the city’s working-class voters, who slowly drifted away from the Democratic Party.

“These are areas of the city that have been trending more Republican for years,” Novotney said.

» LEARN MORE: Democratic turnout in Philadelphia was low. Will the Harris campaign’s stepped-up ground game turn the tide?

Larry Ceisler, a city-based public affairs official who has worked with Democrats, said it will still be difficult for Harris to overcome inflation and the perception that the economy is in bad shape. When it comes to turnout, he said, “people have lost faith in the government.”

“I hope Mayor Parker can turn this around, and I think she could,” Ceisler said. “But people have lost confidence in the government’s ability to improve their lives. »

Some have pointed the finger at the local Democratic Party for its failure to generate greater turnout in the city. The Democratic City Committee has been criticized for years as ineffective. Progressives were particularly clear-eyed Wednesday in highlighting the party’s growing difficulty reaching working-class voters.

“Regular people are demanding to be heard and the Democratic Party has turned a deaf ear,” said Diana Robinson, co-deputy director of Make the Road Action in Pennsylvania, which advocates for Latinos across the state. “Last night, years of neglect of the working class came to a head. »

But former U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, said the failure was down to Harris — a an accusation that his campaign has entirely rejected.

“We did everything we could with the limited resources we had,” Brady said, “and people just rejected it and voted for him.”

Trump grew up in Latino neighborhoods, as elsewhere

Part of Philadelphia’s rightward shift Tuesday occurred in Latino neighborhoods, a once-reliable Democratic base. Support for Trump has increased markedly in Latino communities across the state and countryreflecting a widespread shift among voters who had been telegraphed in the polls.

Harris won handily in the Puerto Rican and Dominican strongholds of North Philadelphia, but the shift was clear.

» LEARN MORE: Latino voters’ growing support for Donald Trump helped him win the battleground in Pennsylvania

Trump’s vote share in the city’s 114 majority-Latino precincts stood at about 22 percent, up from 6 percent in 2016. Trump garnered nearly 23 percent of the vote in North Philadelphia’s 7th District, his total votes increasing by about 1,000 votes from 2016, while Democrats lost nearly 2,000 votes over the same period.

Similarly, the Juniata Park neighborhood saw an increase of more than 9 percentage points in votes for Trump between the two elections, while Fairhill, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, saw an increase of nearly by 6 percentage points.

And in Kensington, a diverse, working-class neighborhood plagued by one of the nation’s most notorious open-air drug markets, Trump saw growth of nearly three points.

State Rep. Danilo Burgos, a Democrat who leads North Philadelphia’s predominantly Latino and black 43rd Ward, said the drift is palpable. Turnout in his district fell 18% from 2020, and Trump increased his vote share from 8% to 14%.

“My community coped as well as it could,” said Burgos, whose family is originally from the Dominican Republic. “Obviously there’s room for improvement.”

Burgos acknowledged that Democrats had failed to deliver a compelling message on the economy and inflation. Whatever reservations Latino voters might have had about a future Trump administration carrying out mass deportations, he argued, they were more concerned about soaring grocery prices and housing.

The community, he said, is not a monolithic voting bloc.

“We have always put the Latino community in the same basket as other groups,” he said, “and in this case, unfortunately, many of them felt they had to vote for the president Trump.”

Many simply chose not to vote. Aida Zeno, who lives in Norris Square, is originally from Puerto Rico and moved to Philadelphia in the early 2000s. Zeno hoped Harris would win, but she refused to vote in protest.

“I don’t think it’s fair for me to give them my vote every time when things never change,” the 54-year-old said in Spanish.

Maria Quiñones-Sánchez, a former city council member who represented swaths of North Philadelphia and Kensington, said Trump was able to capture votes through a mix of economic messages and his particular machismo that particularly appeals to men .

She also said Harris’ short campaign window didn’t allow for extensive community engagement — as Republican operatives targeted Latino votes with an unwavering message.

“They knew they could go after people who were unhappy,” she said. “As Democrats, we fail to explain that our economy is good compared to the rest of the world.”

Staff writers Michelle Myers, Beatrice Forman, John Duchneskie, Chris Williams and Lizzie Mulvey contributed to this article.