Pennsylvania Statewide Discussion

[wbrocks67]

VBM requested: 751,756
Dem: 558,355 (74.3%)
Rep: 185,933 (24.7%)

VBM returned: 22,011
Dem: 15,903 (72.3%)
Rep: 5,705 (25.9%)

Dem return rate: 2.9%
Rep return rate: 3.1%

[wbrocks67]

This was pretty helpful - I got Depasquale, who I was already leaning towards. I like Solomon and Grey but I feel like they'll split the Philly vote.

https://twitter.com/StephenJ_Caruso/status/1777654531980984794

[wbrocks67]

VBM requested: 845,202
Dem: 619,514 (73.3%)
Rep: 217,341 (25.7%)

VBM returned: 71,317
Dem: 53,245 (74.7%)
Rep: 16,759 (23.5%)

Dem return rate: 8.6%
Rep return rate: 7.7%

[wbrocks67]

I won't consider DePasquale only because he strikes me as an opportunist, but I got Bradford-Grey and the more I read about her, the more I like her. I was planning on voting for Khan but I'll have to think about that now. I may not really decide until I actually go to vote.

Excellent resource though. Spotlight does great work.

Yeah, that's the only thing that gives me pause. He's now jumped from Auditor to House to now AG. On one hand, I do believe he still has some statewide name rec which is good, but yeah, it does feel opportunistic at this point, and while I agree with him on many issues, does he have the credentials for AG? Also gives me pause. It's possible I won't decide until the last minute between the 3 lol.

[wbrocks67]

Every statewide Democrat, including Biden, should have Shapiro campaigning with them.



And from that Bullfinch poll-

https://twitter.com/USA_Polling/status/1777861689272045978

Yeah, I'm gonna need Shapiro to just do constant direct to camera appeals this fall for Biden on the airwaves at this point lol

[wbrocks67]

VBM requested: 855,207
Dem: 625,190 (73.1%)
Rep: 221,530 (25.9%)

VBM returned: 103,262
Dem: 76,319 (73.9%)
Rep: 25,488 (24.7%)

Dem return rate: 12.2%
Rep return rate: 11.5%

These numbers are basically the same as what we've been seeing for the last 2 cycles. Reps continue to make no inroads with VBM at this point.

[wbrocks67]

Tim DeFoor's strength and weakness is both that he's a nobody. He's a blank slate to 98% of people. No one knows who he is or what he does. That's why I think it's imperative for Dems to start defining him early, because he is the most blank slate of all blank slates to the average person.

[wbrocks67]

Tim DeFoor's strength and weakness is both that he's a nobody. He's a blank slate to 98% of people. No one knows who he is or what he does. That's why I think it's imperative for Dems to start defining him early, because he is the most blank slate of all blank slates to the average person.

Doesn't DeFoor have an outright majority favoribility rating? There was only poll and its over a year old, but its such a niche position so there isn't anything more recent. It's very difficult to oust an incumbent with those levels of support regardless. And what's even the point? State Auditor is a relatively weak position and there isn't a good reason to spend millions of dollars on an uphill battle to flip it to Dems for the sake of having a Dem. Iowa has a Dem Auditor, it's fine. Even in ruby red SC, McMaster and the legislature appointed a Dem to that position. Stuff like Auditor is just a boring clerical job, and polarizing it because of people's party affiliation is a crappy thing to do. Unless the incumbent is doing a poor job, or doing a bad job it should be a relatively easy hold.

I'm unfamiliar with that poll but there's no way any poll more than like 20/20 makes sense since I guarantee you at least 60% if not more of the state of PA does not know who he is, and that is probably being kind. It's not easy or difficult to oust an incumbent when no one knows who they are.

[wbrocks67]

VBM requested: 862,279
Dem: 629,259 (73.0%)
Rep: 224,495 (26.0%)

VBM returned: 156,341
Dem: 114,738 (73.4%)
Rep: 39,861 (25.5%)

Dem return rate: 18.2%
Rep return rate: 17.7%

[wbrocks67]

Tim DeFoor's strength and weakness is both that he's a nobody. He's a blank slate to 98% of people. No one knows who he is or what he does. That's why I think it's imperative for Dems to start defining him early, because he is the most blank slate of all blank slates to the average person.

Doesn't DeFoor have an outright majority favoribility rating? There was only poll and its over a year old, but its such a niche position so there isn't anything more recent. It's very difficult to oust an incumbent with those levels of support regardless. And what's even the point? State Auditor is a relatively weak position and there isn't a good reason to spend millions of dollars on an uphill battle to flip it to Dems for the sake of having a Dem. Iowa has a Dem Auditor, it's fine. Even in ruby red SC, McMaster and the legislature appointed a Dem to that position. Stuff like Auditor is just a boring clerical job, and polarizing it because of people's party affiliation is a crappy thing to do. Unless the incumbent is doing a poor job, or doing a bad job it should be a relatively easy hold.

I'm unfamiliar with that poll but there's no way any poll more than like 20/20 makes sense since I guarantee you at least 60% if not more of the state of PA does not know who he is, and that is probably being kind. It's not easy or difficult to oust an incumbent when no one knows who they are.

For such a boring position like that its probably a good thing that most people don't know much about him. The only way a state auditor becomes a house hold name is they get caught in a really bad scanadal.

That's the point though, you can easily be defined if you have any skeletons. Which honestly even I didn't know he did, but he is on tape being pretty flippant about the 2020 election so I think there's an angle. The point is, again, it goes both ways. Nobody knowing who you are is both a strength and weakness depending on the situation.

However, it remains to be seen if Kenyatta will go after DeFoor in that way. Bizarro has been fantastic so far at already setting up the campaign against Garrity (who does have more skeletons to be fair) but Kenyatta really needs to start to turn up the heat.

[wbrocks67]

VBM requested: 868,492
Dem: 632,929 (72.9%)
Rep: 226,993 (26.1%)

VBM returned: 194,358
Dem: 142,025 (73.1%)
Rep: 50,341 (25.9%)

Dem return rate: 22.4%
Rep return rate: 22.2%

[wbrocks67]

VBM requested: 868,492
Dem: 632,929 (72.9%)
Rep: 226,993 (26.1%)

VBM returned: 194,358
Dem: 142,025 (73.1%)
Rep: 50,341 (25.9%)

Dem return rate: 22.4%
Rep return rate: 22.2%

I don't think Republicans can recover this decade from the hole they dug themselves on VBM. It's more severe as time goes on. As blue avatars love to remind us, the GOP now has the low-propensity voters, supposedly, so the more they surrender on this issue the worse it's going to be for them.

Well and they really screwed themselves over on the permanent VBM list, too, which like you said, basically assures that a ton of possibly low propensity Dems now automatically get a mail ballot even if they didn't remember to request it. There was a big push especially during COVID to just sign up for the permanent list, and Reps chose to vilify VBM and not have their voters sign up for that. So now it's much more work for them to make sure all their voters are voting vs Dems now know hundreds of thousands of voters who just automatically get the ballot sent to them.

[wbrocks67]

This is why being a nobody is a net negative for DeFoor.

https://twitter.com/jjabbott/status/1778856557666599366

[wbrocks67]

Why is state auditor even a position people can vote for. Like why even administer an election for it, why not just make it an appointed office.

PA is weird like that, where SOS is an appointed office but State Auditor is an elected position lol

[wbrocks67]

Tim DeFoor's strength and weakness is both that he's a nobody. He's a blank slate to 98% of people. No one knows who he is or what he does. That's why I think it's imperative for Dems to start defining him early, because he is the most blank slate of all blank slates to the average person.

Doesn't DeFoor have an outright majority favoribility rating? There was only poll and its over a year old, but its such a niche position so there isn't anything more recent. It's very difficult to oust an incumbent with those levels of support regardless. And what's even the point? State Auditor is a relatively weak position and there isn't a good reason to spend millions of dollars on an uphill battle to flip it to Dems for the sake of having a Dem. Iowa has a Dem Auditor, it's fine. Even in ruby red SC, McMaster and the legislature appointed a Dem to that position. Stuff like Auditor is just a boring clerical job, and polarizing it because of people's party affiliation is a crappy thing to do. Unless the incumbent is doing a poor job, or doing a bad job it should be a relatively easy hold.

"How dare Democrats run against a Republican?"

I'm not saying that. What my point is though is that Auditor is the type position that you really shouldn't care about which political party the person is as long as they are doing a decent job. For an open seat sure, but its really unhealthy for our country to vote an incumbent out of a position if their only sin is being a member of the opposite party. I'm not going to attack the voters though. The bigger issue is when political parties spend millions trying to politicize offices that are boring clerical work on the state level.

I mean, when they open themselves up like Garrity did to be partisan, why wouldn't they be voted out?

DeFoor also has not been entirely silent, he refused to say the 2020 election was fully fair:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C1z3n9dpODL/

Just because you're an incumbent as well doesn't just mean you're doing a great job, that's a bad assumption to make?

[wbrocks67]

On the AG quiz, I got Stollsteimer. He was my second choice in the end—I voted Solomon by mail. Apparently (as of last week) he was the only candidate on TV statewide. I think DePasquale wins though.

Yeah I was able to catch some of 6ABC (Philly market) on Friday and saw a few Solomon and Stollstmeier ads, but it was like 3 Stollsteimer to 1 Solomon. Surprised Depasquale is not up on TV.

Got a mailer though for Joe Khan lol.

[wbrocks67]

VBM requested: 876,681
Dem: 638,311 (72.8%)
Rep: 229,751 (26.2%)

VBM returned: 248,094
Dem: 182,934 (73.7%)
Rep: 62,887 (25.3%)

Dem return rate: 28.7%
Rep return rate: 27.4%

Looking at the county by county breakdown, it's also very underrated how great of a VBM operation PA Dems have put into place in the more redder counties. You'd be surprised at how many Dem mail ballots are being racked up in these places (and at this point, you know they're still actual Dems vs. ancestral Ds, since the R-voting ancestral Ds would not be using VBM these days lol)

[wbrocks67]

Meanwhile, Montco has been a disaster with ballots the last few cycles for reasons I do not understand why. For whatever reason, they can't get it together to get these ballots out in a timely manner. This happened multiple cycles in a row. Somehow Philly, Allegheny, and even the smaller counties all have their ish together, but it makes me sad and angry that my home county can't figure this out. It's clearly not a USPS issue if the rest of the state is not having issues.

https://twitter.com/PoliticsPA/status/1779885470287057377

[wbrocks67]

On Tuesday morning of election:
2021G: 685K; 71.1% D, 21.8% R — D+49.3
2022G: 1.18M; 69.2% D, 21.3% R — D+47.9
2023G: 782K; 72.0% D, 20.8% R — D+51.2

2024P (so far): 248K; 73.7% D, 25.3% R — D+48.4

I'd have to go back to see how the other primaries have gone, but primary right now moving similarly to VBM for the last 3 generals.

[wbrocks67]

VBM requested: 887,473
Dem: 645,122 (72.7%)
Rep: 233,652 (26.3%)

VBM returned: 322,549
Dem: 235,319 (73.0%)
Rep: 84,598 (26.2%)

Dem return rate: 36.5%
Rep return rate: 36.2%

[wbrocks67]

Today is the last day to request a ballot, correct?

Yes

[wbrocks67]

On Tuesday morning of election:
2021G: 685K; 71.1% D, 21.8% R — D+49.3
2022G: 1.18M; 69.2% D, 21.3% R — D+47.9
2023G: 782K; 72.0% D, 20.8% R — D+51.2

2024P (so far): 248K; 73.7% D, 25.3% R — D+48.4

I'd have to go back to see how the other primaries have gone, but primary right now moving similarly to VBM for the last 3 generals.

If you had to wager a guess, how many total combined votes do you think we get in the Democratic and Republican primary?

I think we could get pretty close to 2021G. We'll likely end up close to 900k requested, and if we get to ~75% return rate like last year, that would put us at around 675k.

[wbrocks67]

AG fundraising:
Solomon - $363k
Stollstemier - $352k
Khan - $276k
Bradford-Grey - $114k
Depasquale - $88k

https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2024/04/pennsylvania-primary-election-2024-attorney-general-campaign-finance-cycle-2/

Those #s are truly ghastly for Depasquale. I think I might do Solomon at this point.

[wbrocks67]

VBM requested: 895,166
Dem: 650,260 (72.6%)
Rep: 236,133 (26.4%)

VBM returned: 357,257
Dem: 259,602 (72.7%)
Rep: 94,826 (26.5%)

Dem return rate: 39.9%
Rep return rate: 40.2%

Montco not even having processed 1,000 ballots out of 79,000 requested... ugh

[wbrocks67]

VBM requested: 895,705
Dem: 650,585 (72.6%)
Rep: 236,345 (26.4%)

VBM returned: 552,839
Dem: 406,166 (73.5%)
Rep: 143,231 (25.9%)

Dem return rate: 62.4%
Rep return rate: 60.6%