Dissecting Pennsylvania’s Election Results
Op-Ed by Matt Brouillette. This piece originally appeared in RealClear Pennsylvania.
On November 5, voters handily rejected Democrats’ progressive, woke, defund-the police agenda that defined the past four years.
Even many voters who often cringed at President-elect Trump or once vowed never to support him found themselves punching their ballots for him without hesitation – displaying their desire for renewed economic prosperity, a secure country, and safe neighborhoods.
Among the many things the results exposed – both in Pennsylvania and beyond – is that the Left’s long reliance on race or ethnicity as a predictor of voting patterns is finally crumbling.
Whereas once Democrats expected to win the support of black or Hispanic voters without earning it, this election showed that these voters – not surprisingly – care about many of the same issues that other voters do: the economy, secure borders, public safety.
Indeed, the Left’s fixation on forcing the term “Latinx” on a population that largely rejects it wasn’t enough to overcome the cost of groceries, and Kamala Harris’ identity preoccupations couldn’t counter her lack of a plan to make life affordable. Digging beyond the “joy,” voters found little to attract, reassure, or enthuse them.
In Pennsylvania, long considered the most pivotal of swing states, there were warning signs for the Left long before Election Day.
For years, the Democrats’ voter registration edge had been shrinking by leaps and bounds. Whereas ten years ago, registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans in the commonwealth by more than 1 million, by November 5, that gap had fallen to less than 300,000.
Of course, party registration alone does not predict one’s vote. But the stunning shift boded ill for Democrats heading into Election Day.
Alongside Trump’s decisive, top-of-the ticket victory in Pa., the results of down-ballot races also represented a rejection of progressive policies – with some interesting nuances along the way.
Incumbency proved powerful, except when it wasn’t. Money proved pivotal, except when it didn’t. And the Trump-effect proved it could leave a wake of Republican victories, except where it couldn’t.
In the race for U.S. Senate, for example, the Casey name is about as tied to Pennsylvania as Joe Biden’s name is to Scranton. And once upon a time, politicos scoffed at the idea that Casey could lose an election.
But lose he did to Republican Dave McCormick, albeit closely enough that a recount –demanded by Casey – is now underway. Despite Casey’s decades of incumbency, McCormick’s relentless messaging campaign tying Casey to Biden and Harris was enough to convince voters that he deserved to be shown the same exit door. The race saw well over $300 million in advertising spending, about evenly split between the candidates, according to the tracking firm AdImpact.
In the end, Trump’s upward pull and the Biden-Harris downward drag, combined with McCormick’s campaign messaging discipline, was enough to give McCormick the edge – even though it’s a small one that is still being tabulated – over Casey.
In the state row office races for attorney general, auditor general, and treasurer, the dynamic was much different.
While Trump’s margin of victory over Harris, per unofficial results, was about 135,000 votes, Republican attorney general nominee Dave Sunday defeated Democrat Eugene DePasquale by nearly 330,000 votes in a race for an open seat.
By any comparison, DePasquale had far higher name recognition heading into campaign season, having previously won statewide races for state auditor general in 2012 and 2016. But while Republican Dave Sunday, whom my organization supported, ran on his record as a career prosecutor with a history of taking dangerous drugs and violent criminals off the streets, DePasquale ran on his pro-abortion position, making it the top issue on his campaign website.
In the end, supporters of Sunday – including our political action committee – outspent DePasquale by approximately 3:1, or $21 million to $7 million. The national Republican Attorneys General Association spent millions in support of Sunday.
National Democrats, meanwhile, never came to DePasquale’s financial rescue to any significant degree, perhaps thinking that the presidential race in Pennsylvania would be close and DePasquale’s statewide name ID would help him win without spending more, a calculation that proved false on multiple levels.
In the remaining row offices of auditor general and treasurer, incumbents Tim DeFoor and Stacy Garrity easily won re-election. This marked the first time Republicans won all three row offices. Additionally Garrity, known as a strong campaigner, broke the previous record of the most votes garnered by any candidate in a Pennsylvania statewide election. With the Left’s penchant to blame “sexism” for Harris’s loss, they would do well to take note that Garrity is a woman.
To a casual observer, perhaps the most baffling of Pennsylvania’s election results is found in state legislative races, where Democrats retained their one-seat majority (102-101) in the Pennsylvania House, despite Republican wins in every statewide election and multiple competitive congressional races. But a closer look yields some answers.
Heading into the election, Democrats hoped to expand their House majority and chip away at Republicans’ 28-22 state Senate lead. Meanwhile, Republicans set out to flip the House and maintain the Senate status quo. Only the last of these four things materialized. In fact, of the 228 legislative seats up for election (203 in the House and 25 in the Senate), just one incumbent lost and just one seat – that same seat – changed party hands.
In the Senate, only four of the 25 seats up for election were competitive, thanks to Democrats’ redrawing district maps in 2021 to benefit their party. Republican incumbents seeking re-election held two of these seats. A third seat was held by a retiring Democrat. The final seat was in a Northeast Philadelphia district that Democrats held and did not believe would be competitive.
Here’s where spending sometimes made a difference and sometimes didn’t. Both Republican incumbents outspent their opponents (approximately $8 million combined to $5.2 million combined) and retained their seats. In the third seat, the Republican candidate spent approximately $1 million more than the Democrat ($3.7 million to $2.8 million), yet came up short by a 53%-47% margin. None of these three seats changed party hands.
In the fourth seat, however, Republican Joe Picozzi ousted incumbent Democrat state Sen. Jimmy Dillon in what Democrats called their “most embarrassing” loss of the night. Picozzi slightly outspent Dillon, by approximately $1.4 million to $1.2 million, but because Democrats overlooked how competitive this seat would be, they did not begin focusing on it until close to the election. By then it was too late.
Dillon had been plagued in recent months by multiple scandals. And this seat was a classic case of a weak incumbent, a strong challenger, competitive spending, and an overall climate favorable to Republicans.
With this win, Republicans flipped one Senate seat, but this gain was offset by a Democrat flip in south-central Pennsylvania of a once-competitive Senate district that Democrats had gerrymandered into a solid Democratic district. The Republican had not run for re-election in that district.
All told, in the four competitive Senate races, Republicans outspent Democrats by about $13 million to $9 million to retain their 28-22 majority and hand Democrats a surprise blue-to-red flip in Philadelphia.
In the Pennsylvania House, the battle was even more intense, as partisan control of this chamber would determine if the Legislature would be united or divided heading into 2025.
Democrats spent a staggering $20 million to Republicans’ $8 million in competitive House races, which included approximately 14 districts out of 203. In these districts – 9 of which were held by Democrats and 5 by Republicans – both parties saw opportunities for gain.
In the end, the outcome was the status quo, with just three of these seats being close. In Bucks County, Republican challenger Dan McPhillips came within 2 percentage points of defeating incumbent Democrat Rep. Brian Munroe, per unofficial results. And in Philadelphia, Aizaz Gill came about as close to defeating Democrat Sean Dougherty. Ultimately, both Democrats won.
Dougherty, however, outspent Gill nearly 10:1 ($2.5 million to $272,000) for that slim win. And Munroe outspent McPhillips $1.5 million to $1.1 million for the close victory.
As election week dragged on, the final House race – and control of the chamber – came down to the 72nd District in deep-red Cambria County. Defying every partisan indicator, Democrat Frank Burns has held this seat since 2009 by pretending to be more conservative than he is. Due to system errors on Election Day, Cambria County votes took longer than usual to tally.
To keep their majority, Democrats had to keep this seat. And they knew it. That’s why they spent a record-breaking $4 million backing Burns, compared with the $1.3 million Republicans spent in support of challenger Amy Bradley.
And despite Democrats oft-repeated criticism of “billionaire” money on the right, they relied on out-of-state millionaires and billionaires to bankroll Burns’ campaign.
But it wasn’t money alone that gave Burns the edge. He knew he couldn’t campaign on his record of helping advance the Left’s agenda in Harrisburg, including voting for Philadelphia Democrat Joanna McClinton as House Speaker. Not in a district that votes overwhelmingly for Republicans, including President Trump.
So instead, Burns pretended to be a Trump ally and falsely suggested that Bradley was not, even though Trump endorsed Bradley in the race.
In fact, Burns’ most aired TV ad, which per AdImpact “aired over 1,100 times on local broadcast stations,” suggested Bradley had misled Trump and actually opposed border security plans.
In reality, Burns, who touted NRA and pro-life endorsements that fooled enough voters into thinking he was on their side, is the one who misled voters.
When votes were finally counted, Burns defeated Bradley by fewer than 1,000 votes, or 51%-49% per unofficial results, handing Democrats the House majority once again.
The most ironic part of this victory is that Democrats—who are open about their disdain for Trump – didn’t maintain their majority by running on their progressive, open border, defund-the-police agenda but instead by pretending to be like Trump. In a twisted sense, the Trump coattails won in Cambria County, but it was a deceptive win.
The one-time-projected factor in Pennsylvania races that’s been somewhat ignored since Election Day is Gov. Josh Shapiro.
After being passed over for the VP slot, Shapiro became a Harris campaign surrogate in Pennsylvania. But he was impotent in this role. Even his catchy “get stuff done” mantra proved empty in Harris’ 11th-hour campaign ad in Pennsylvania. And his false “moderate” persona couldn’t sway voters away from the reality of the far Left’s agenda.
Of course, in his first two years as governor, Shapiro has failed to deliver on multiple campaign promises, so his inability to deliver for Harris or Casey in Pennsylvania isn’t surprising.
In the end, this year’s election results should be a warning to Democrats that their leftward lurch truly is a bridge too far for most Pennsylvanians and most Americans.
And in Pennsylvania, while divided government remains, Republicans have the upper hand of voter sentiment heading into 2025. And they should use it.
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Matthew J. Brouillette is president and CEO of Commonwealth Partners.