News & Brews November 7, 2025
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Pa. still doesn’t have a state budget
It shouldn’t get lost in the news of the federal shutdown and Tuesday’s elections that Pennsylvania still doesn’t have a state budget—and hasn’t had one since the budget deadline of June 30. Gov. Josh Shapiro has spent his time this week back on his beloved media circuit blasting Republicans. Meanwhile, he’s still been unable to deliver a budget for Pennsylvania.
Tuesday’s results will vacate 4 Pa. House seats
Amid all the election news from Tuesday came news that four Pa. House members won election to other offices and will vacate their House seats. GOP Rep. Lou Schmitt (Blair County), GOP Rep. Torren Ecker (Adams & Cumberland counties), and Democrat Rep. Dan Miller (Allegheny County) will become court of common pleas judges, while Democrat Rep. Josh Siegel will become Lehigh Valley Executive. Special elections on a date to-be-determined will take place to fill their seats.
ChesCo wasn’t alone in poll book problems
I already shared the story of Chester County accidentally using poll books from the primary election, but now we see that ChesCo wasn’t alone in a major Election Day error. Fayette County also had a problem. The AP reports that there, “officials discovered that the Department of State had mistakenly supplied electronic voter data that was from the 2024 voter file…. The Department of State called it ‘human error,’ but otherwise didn’t say how it would prevent the error in the future. Voters arriving at the polls, in some cases, found that the county’s electronic poll books listed them as having already voted.”
‘Are Dems celebrating a little too much?’
Ruy Teixeira of the Liberal Patriot writes that even though Democrats had a “very good night” Tuesday and it’s “been a bad week to be a Republican,” digging deeper should offer both parties cause for pause. For Republicans, “It turns out how you govern matters, and if voters don’t like the results they will punish you.” Republican “candidates were dragged down by the unpopularity of Trump and his actions.” For Democrats, “the risk is that the party uses a few good results in a few states as permission to memory-hole last year’s disastrous performance—and skirt the awkward conversation about why they lost so badly. Democrats cannot let themselves off the hook for the many ways over many years they have alienated working-class voters; Tuesday’s results are, at best, no more than a down payment on fixing that problem.”
How this year’s retention results were different
The Inquirer looks at what it calls a “new partisan tilt to traditionally routine and sleepy judicial retention elections.” Of course, the Left and the sitting justices dramatically politicized these elections—campaigning heavily on a pro-abortion platform. Still, the story notes, “While the justices were ultimately retained, the …’vote no’ campaign to oust them got through to most GOP-majority counties across the state. Before this year’s Supreme Court election, judges and justices were almost always retained, and a majority of voters in every county voted in favor of their retention.” This year, “In 41 Pennsylvania counties, a majority voted against retaining the justices.”