11/5/2008, 4:03 p.m. EST
By PETER JACKSON
The Associated Press        

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Is Pennsylvania still a swing state?

When the state went for Barack Obama on Tuesday, playing a key role in Obama's stunning victory, it made him the fifth Democrat in a row to carry Pennsylvania in a presidential election.

Obama's 55 percent share of the vote was the largest the party has seen in the state since Lyndon Johnson won 65 percent in 1964. Democrats also strengthened their majority in the state's congressional delegation and possibly in the state House of Representatives. Democratic voters now outnumber Republicans by more than 1 million.

But not everyone is ready to put Pennsylvania in the ranks of reliably Democratic northeastern states.

Alan Novak, a former longtime chairman of the state Republican Party, said Wednesday the Keystone State remains competitive, citing regional differences in Pennsylvania's population and voters' penchant for voting a split ticket.

Novak said Obama's charisma, his advantage in fundraising and national issues including the meltdown of the nation's financial sector created a unique situation with unique consequences that worked against the GOP.

"I think we're probably a state that's in play for a number of years yet," said Novak, who now runs a political consulting firm. "We've always been in play to the very last day. That's to me the definition of a swing state."

Sen. Bob Casey, who endorsed Obama before he lost the state's April primary to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, noted Pennsylvania is always competitive in presidential elections and would remain that way for at least a few more years.

Obama's campaign was the driving force behind massive voter-recruitment drives that added 600,000 people to the state's Democratic rolls in the past year.

In Tuesday's election, Obama was the first Democrat to carry at least three once solidly Republican counties — Chester, Berks and Dauphin — since Johnson's landslide 44 years ago.

Two years ago, before the 2006 election, Republicans dominated the state's congressional delegation and controlled both houses of the state Legislature.

When the new Congress is sworn in, Pennsylvania Democrats will outnumber Pennsylvania Republicans 13-8. In the state House of Representatives, Democrats voiced confidence that they would widen their one-seat majority once all the votes were tallied in several races still too close to call.

Terry Madonna, a professor and pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, is convinced that Pennsylvania is in a slow transition to becoming dependably Democratic — maybe in the next four years, maybe not for another two or three presidential election cycles.

He cited the continuing influx of new residents from other states, population declines in traditionally conservative western Pennsylvania and the suburban expansion in southeastern Pennsylvania, where Obama carried Philadelphia and all four of the counties surrounding it.

"The long-term trends are very problematic for the Republicans," he said. "We are teetering on seeing the competitive two-party system wilt away."

Countered Novak: "I just think we need to watch it play out longer."