Pennsylvania Statewide Discussion

[Duke of York]

So, to summarize the judicial results:

McCaffery (D) beat Carluccio (R) and Dems will now hold a 5-2 supermajority on the court.

Timika Lane (D) and Jill Beck (D) both flipped seats on the GOP-held state Superior court (Court below SC) thus flipping control of the chamber from R to D.

Matt Wolf (D) flipped a seat on the Commonwealth court and will bring that chamber's composition down to 5R-4D.

can you provide a source?

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

So, to summarize the judicial results:

McCaffery (D) beat Carluccio (R) and Dems will now hold a 5-2 supermajority on the court.

Timika Lane (D) and Jill Beck (D) both flipped seats on the GOP-held state Superior court (Court below SC) thus flipping control of the chamber from R to D.

Matt Wolf (D) flipped a seat on the Commonwealth court and will bring that chamber's composition down to 5R-4D.

can you provide a source?

https://www.electionreturns.pa.gov/

I don’t think any outlet has called the seat for Lane yet, but it’s pretty much a done deal at this point. The R closest to her in the results still trails her by just over 100K and I’m not sure where they would find the votes to close that gap.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This underscores a point I think has been overlooked which has put the Republicans in a pickle in Pennsylvania: if Pennsylvania elects a Republican governor then there will almost certainly be an R Legislature meaning abortion will then be illegal in PA. This didn't really come up in 2022 because Mastriano had no chance anyway but next competitive gubernatorial election....it will. Now the PA Supreme Court currently and likely in the future would probably strike down any abortion ban, sure. But this means that: 1-Republicans will struggle to win any seats on the PASC like ejaculated happened here, also a bad spot and 2-this won't help gubernatorial candidates much. "Vote for me because the state Supreme Court will take down any abortion ban I absolutely will sign anyway" isn't a very compelling campaign plank.

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1722085211633061907

Would have been more like an earth-shattering loss if she hadn't won, but again we'll take the w

[wbrocks67]

Innamorato's ground game apparently was terrific, but Dems did an awful job at fundraising with that race. He had a wealthy PAC send him $$ so it wasn't all his own fundraising, but Ds really dropped the ball letting Rs outspend them overall so much in that race. The final spending was like $2.5M for Rs to like $500K for Ds

[Not Me, Us]

Looks like Dems swept the Supreme Court seat, Commonwealth Court seat, and both Superior Court seats. Local Dems also swept the Township Commissioner and school board races that were up. Stellar night for PA Democrats, who continue to impress me.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

AP finally declared Lane the second winner in the Superior Court race.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

Looks like Dems swept the Supreme Court seat, Commonwealth Court seat, and both Superior Court seats. Local Dems also swept the Township Commissioner and school board races that were up. Stellar night for PA Democrats, who continue to impress me.

Are you still in Lancaster? Yoder won the 3rd spot on the board of county commissioners and fell about 7,000 votes shy of getting the 2nd most votes. This bit from LNP's article made me laugh:

Parsons, at the GOP celebration Tuesday night, said voters rejected Hollisters’ "angry agenda, violent rhetoric and seemingly unlimited money backing him from George Soros’ dark money PAC and also from liberal donors, including the leadership of LNP.”

He added: Hollister “and those who support him would rather divide us than unite us. Ray and I want to unite us.”

https://lancasteronline.com/news/politics/gop-lancaster-county-commissioners-win-another-term-dem-alice-yoder-wins-third-seat/article_c16a96b2-7df4-11ee-a4bf-fbb1bacfc30d.html

Yes, George Soros rhetoric in a county commissioner race in rural PA. Normal stuff from the Lancaster GOP. Also, Bob Hollister was a Republican until January 6th so it's pretty funny to think he probably voted for Parsons and D'Agostino 4 years ago.

Yoder had a pretty strong ground game from what I saw, too.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

Interesting article from the Inquirer here about the Democrats' big wins in the collar counties around Philadelphia: https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/bucks-chester-montgomery-delaware-commissioner-election-results-2023-20231108.html

“I’m a little tired of Republicans — they scare me,” said Drexel Harris, a 78-year-old from Bensalem who had voted earlier in the day. “The national is pushing everybody.”

James Hansen of Levittown, agreed — so much that he changed how he voted this year.

Hansen, 70, said he was supporting Democrats down the ticket, a marked change from the last commissioners race, when he voted for Republicans.

“I’m really upset about the fake election and the insurrection stuff,” Hansen said after casting his vote at an elementary school. “I’m not supporting any Republicans until they get it together.”

Seems like the national environment had at least some impact on the local races and we should not discount these anecdotes. Evidence points to a lot of voter fatigue with the culture war and election denial bullsh-t, so Democrats might be wise to lean into that next year. Democrats did a really great job presenting a united front on the culture war issues in the school board races while Republicans were unsure whether to fully commit or not. That disorganization may have been the nail in the coffin.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

So I was looking further into my precinct turnout and results, discovered this:



Don't want to say I single-handedly delivered my precinct to Dan McCaffery, but...(blocked out the town name for privacy purposes)

Interestingly enough, this was the only race where a Democrat beat a Republican. Every vote counts.

[Thank you for being a friend...]

So I was looking further into my precinct turnout and results, discovered this:



Don't want to say I single-handedly delivered my precinct to Dan McCaffery, but...(blocked out the town name for privacy purposes)

Interestingly enough, this was the only race where a Democrat beat a Republican. Every vote counts.

So true, every vote really does count.  These races are too close for anyone to stay home.

[Thank you for being a friend...]

Anyone notice a tiny swing to D in Pike County?  It voted about the same as Luzerne County.  About 55-45 R, but Pike has historically been much more Republican than that.  Maybe the Milford area is becoming more Democratic?

[wbrocks67]

Anyone notice a tiny swing to D in Pike County?  It voted about the same as Luzerne County.  About 55-45 R, but Pike has historically been much more Republican than that.  Maybe the Milford area is becoming more Democratic?

There was a couple swings like this that were surprising, I noticed Pike among them. Didn't peg that as a possibility for a slightly D trending county.

[Not Me, Us]

Looks like Dems swept the Supreme Court seat, Commonwealth Court seat, and both Superior Court seats. Local Dems also swept the Township Commissioner and school board races that were up. Stellar night for PA Democrats, who continue to impress me.

Are you still in Lancaster? Yoder won the 3rd spot on the board of county commissioners and fell about 7,000 votes shy of getting the 2nd most votes. This bit from LNP's article made me laugh:

Parsons, at the GOP celebration Tuesday night, said voters rejected Hollisters’ "angry agenda, violent rhetoric and seemingly unlimited money backing him from George Soros’ dark money PAC and also from liberal donors, including the leadership of LNP.”

He added: Hollister “and those who support him would rather divide us than unite us. Ray and I want to unite us.”

https://lancasteronline.com/news/politics/gop-lancaster-county-commissioners-win-another-term-dem-alice-yoder-wins-third-seat/article_c16a96b2-7df4-11ee-a4bf-fbb1bacfc30d.html

Yes, George Soros rhetoric in a county commissioner race in rural PA. Normal stuff from the Lancaster GOP. Also, Bob Hollister was a Republican until January 6th so it's pretty funny to think he probably voted for Parsons and D'Agostino 4 years ago.

Yoder had a pretty strong ground game from what I saw, too.

I was really impressed with the Yoder campaign. A friend of mine from high school worked on it and they all really worked their asses off. Hollister losing was my only real disappointment in PA last night, and even then it was far from unexpected. If only one Dem was gonna win, I'd definitely rather it be Yoder than Hollister.

[Thank you for being a friend...]

Anyone notice a tiny swing to D in Pike County?  It voted about the same as Luzerne County.  About 55-45 R, but Pike has historically been much more Republican than that.  Maybe the Milford area is becoming more Democratic?

There was a couple swings like this that were surprising, I noticed Pike among them. Didn't peg that as a possibility for a slightly D trending county.

What were the other county swings you saw?  Was Cumberland one of them?

[wbrocks67]

Anyone notice a tiny swing to D in Pike County?  It voted about the same as Luzerne County.  About 55-45 R, but Pike has historically been much more Republican than that.  Maybe the Milford area is becoming more Democratic?

There was a couple swings like this that were surprising, I noticed Pike among them. Didn't peg that as a possibility for a slightly D trending county.

What were the other county swings you saw?  Was Cumberland one of them?

Cumberland definitely did, but that was less surprising to me because we've known Cumberland has been trending left. Berks was obviously a huge surprise, very curious what happened there since that's been trending R.

Westmoreland and Lancaster also had shifts but the former still has a bit of ancestral D strength and the latter is slightly trending D at a glacial place.

[Thank you for being a friend...]

Anyone notice a tiny swing to D in Pike County?  It voted about the same as Luzerne County.  About 55-45 R, but Pike has historically been much more Republican than that.  Maybe the Milford area is becoming more Democratic?

There was a couple swings like this that were surprising, I noticed Pike among them. Didn't peg that as a possibility for a slightly D trending county.

What were the other county swings you saw?  Was Cumberland one of them?

Cumberland definitely did, but that was less surprising to me because we've known Cumberland has been trending left. Berks was obviously a huge surprise, very curious what happened there since that's been trending R.

Westmoreland and Lancaster also had shifts but the former still has a bit of ancestral D strength and the latter is slightly trending D at a glacial place.

I did notice Lancaster... that whole region of Amish Country and the Harrisburg region seems very desirable to live in, it's very nice (plus it has Sheetz).  Maybe there's been a big increase in population, with people from Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia suburbs moving gradually west?

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

More votes have dropped and McCaffery is now ahead in Berks county. His statewide lead over Carluccio is now a little over 200K.

[Tekken_Guy]

More votes have dropped and McCaffery is now ahead in Berks county. He also once again has a 200K vote lead over Carluccio.

Do you think Biden might win it over Trump next year?

[Splash]

I'm still impressed by the Dem performance in Westmoreland and Washington. I know that the Westmoreland Dems in particular had a good absentee ballot GOTV campaign but I didn't think I'd see as many blue precincts as I did in the Mon Valley.  

[Splash]

https://twitter.com/chwolfson/status/1722356136584560918

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

https://twitter.com/chwolfson/status/1722356136584560918

Biden carried Marshall township, so I'm surprised to see McCaffery lost it. He also lost Plum which I would've expected him to carry given how much he dominated in the county. He also underperformed Biden in Fox Chapel, but still won it. I'm not super surprised with that, though. FC is one of those affluent, college educated, super white towns where I'd expect downballot Rs to still have a little strength left. Both Biden and Rockey won >60% of the vote there.

[Tekken_Guy]

According to my calculations, McCaffery actually won Pennsylvania minus Philadelphia by about half a percentage point. Trump won it by over 6 points in 2020, and Oz won it by a little over a point. If these trends carry over to next year that is bad news for Trump regardless of any issues Biden has in Philly.

[henster]

Remarkable how PA Dems have pretty much been on a winning streak since 2014.

[Mr. Smith]

Remarkable how PA Dems have pretty much been on a winning streak since 2014.

Tumor got re-elected in 2016, not to mention Trump.