If it’s true that support for a fracking ban is surefire way for a candidate to lose Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes, it’s not because oil and gas drilling is overwhelmingly popular or central to the economy of the state.
Polls show that support for a fracking ban in Pennsylvania sits north of 40 percent.
Oil and gas and the rest of the mining sector rank 13th for their contribution to the state’s gross domestic product, behind both utilities and the sector encompassing entertainment, arts and food services. The drilling industry directly employs 0.002 percent of the Keystone state workforce.
And Democrats have been winning statewide in Pennsylvania for 10 years with a nuanced position on fracking, besting some “drill, baby, drill” Republicans.
The conventional wisdom may yet be right. Pollsters say supporters of fracking have a more singular passion than opponents. And Vice President Kamala Harris was quick to disown her past support for a ban when she became the Democratic presidential nominee in this year’s race, facing off against former President Donald Trump.
But what it boils down to for presidential candidates is this: You don’t have to love fracking to win Pennsylvania. You just don’t want to be the one trying to ban it.
“It’s one of those issues that’s asymmetrical,” said Berwood Yost, pollster and director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “So opposing a fracking ban, if you’re a Democrat, is smart politics.”
It’s a subtle distinction. But it shows that the conventional wisdom about fracking in Pennsylvania fits a bumper sticker better than it fits the state.
Again this year, the state is the keystone to the Electoral College and polls show a virtual dead heat between Harris and Trump. So understanding the subtle distinctions on a multitude of issues, including fracking, could be the key to winning the White House.
It’s worth noting that a president cannot ban fracking on private land, where most drilling takes place in Pennsylvania. Still, for voters, the “ban/not ban” debate does present a pretty good shorthand for the candidates’ energy positions.
Trump, the Republican nominee, wants to push the country’s already record-breaking petroleum production even higher. He wants to wipe out the Biden policies his industry supporters fear could inhibit future production and scrap efforts to reduce the effects of climate change.
He’s hitting Harris with television ads reminding voters that Harris in 2019 told a CNN audience “there’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,” a position she has abandoned.
And whatever statements Harris has made over the years on fracking, she supports more regulation of the pollution caused by drilling and wants to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
The Harris and Trump campaigns did not respond to questions about the significance of fracking as an issue in Pennsylvania.
But Larry Ceisler does have some thoughts about its significance to voters. The Philadelphia public affairs executive says it’s overblown.
“It is not the issue that the Trump people make it out to be,” said Ceisler, a Democrat who has a gas lease and supports fracking. “Fracking is just an easy talking point.”
It plays into the economy, he said, which is top of mind for a vast number of voters. But when it comes to fracking specifically, he thinks issues like abortion will move more voters.
Drilling numbers
Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing, one of the processes used in constructing an oil and gas well. It involves blasting water, chemicals and sand into deep subterranean formations to crack open rock and release oil and gas. Fracked wells account for about 93 percent of all U.S. production.
About 15 years ago, Pennsylvania was one of the first states outside of Texas to see the dramatic effects of new fracturing technology as companies tapped the gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale play. The enhanced fracking techniques have made Pennsylvania the country’s No. 2 gas producer.
Most explanations for pundits’ obsession with Pennsylvania fracking are that it is important to the economy, sometimes even central to it. That overstates things.
The drilling industry now directly employs about 12,000 people in Pennsylvania. That’s down from 17,000 in 2019. Its main trade group, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, says the amount of money gas companies pump into the state’s economy will support another 120,000 jobs.
That’s a lot of jobs. But the state has nearly 13 million people and workforce of more than 6 million.
The mining sector, which includes oil and gas drilling, contributes about $9 billion to the state’s gross domestic product, or about 1.2 percent of the whole, according to an analysis of Commerce Department data. The analysis, done by market research firm Statista, puts it in 13th place, behind both utilities and entertainment/arts/food services.
Whatever pundits say on cable TV late into the night, not that many Pennsylvanians think about fracking all that much. Gas production occurs in the state’s southwest and rural Northern Tier, away from the concentrated population of Philadelphia and its suburbs.
And data shows plenty of the people who do care about fracking don’t like it.
Past polling has found that opposition to fracking, or even support for banning it, runs higher than 40 percent in Pennsylvania. In a 2020 Franklin & Marshall College poll of Pennsylvania voters, support for a ban outpolled opposition 48 percent to 39 percent.
Still, polls over time have shown that more than 80 percent consider it “somewhat” or “very” important to the economy.
The main argument for why fracking is an important issue is that a relatively small number of voters care a whole lot about it. And in a state that could be determined by vote margins in the five figures and fractions of a percent, a relatively small number of votes can decide which candidate wins.
“Could some things that might not be very important to most people have an impact because they affect a small group of voters? The answer is yes,” said Christopher Borick, a pollster and political science professor at Pennsylvania’s Muhlenberg College.
The fracking supporters whose livelihoods depend on it are likely to be single-issue voters, pollsters say. The voters who dislike fracking, on the other hand, are more willing to forgive a candidate like Harris who backtracks on previous support for a ban. They might still like her other environmental positions, or might be even more fired up about other issues, such as abortion.
And Democrats need to shore up their support in the rural areas where those supporters are concentrated.
“People in those communities where it’s important are passionate,” said Yost, the Pennsylvania pollster who oversees what was once known as The Keystone Poll. “They’ll vote against you because a fracking ban is, in their minds, running against their economic interests.”
But the focus on two words — “banning fracking” — could make it easier to sell a more environmentally friendly agenda, Yost said. The hostility of some gas industry supporters for a critic of fracking could fade, so long as they believe the candidate doesn’t want to “ban” it.
“That’s a defensible, and I think wise, sort of policy stance,” Yost said. “There’s enough there to make everybody mad, but, but not to drag them away from you.”
That leaves on the table a lot of positions that could significantly affect the petroleum business, including pollution restrictions on drilling rigs and pipelines, waste disposal and limiting production on federal lands.
Larger issues?
Beyond the most intense supporters and opponents of fracking, the issue fits into larger, national issues that most everyone agrees are driving the election this year — the economy and the country’s cultural divides.
“You can use fracking as a kind of symbolic economic policy driver,” Yost said. That is why fracking is being talked about more now than in 2020, he said.
It can also play a role in resentment politics, he said, the sense among rural, blue-collar voters that the urbanites who would ban fracking don’t care about their economic well-being.
“That says something about people respecting the things that are important to your community,” he added. “Those are parts of the state where Democrats are trying their best not to lose by 40 points.”
History is not on Trump’s side in the drilling debate, though the 2024 presidential race remains hard to predict.
Republicans, who generally voice full-throated support for the gas industry, have fared poorly in most statewide races in Pennsylvania in recent years.
Fracking hasn’t been a top issue in most of those races. But Democrats, walking a careful line of supporting drilling but also promising strong environmental protections, have prevailed in every race for governor since 2010.
Trump tried four years ago to convince voters that Harris and President Joe Biden, who became president after winning the election, were out to ban fracking. This time, Trump has the advantage of a television clip of Harris saying, “there’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.”
But Biden’s messaging on fracking was similarly muddled then. His position was that he opposed a fracking ban, and he accused Trump of lying about it at an appearance in Pennsylvania. He also told supporters he would “end fossil fuel,” and his campaign staff had to scramble to walk back Biden’s words after he said “no new fracking” in a debate.
Biden still prevailed in Pennsylvania, if narrowly.
