News & Brews October 1, 2026
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The Atlantic questions Shapiro’s style
The Atlantic has a new story on Gov. Josh Shapiro, questioning his uncanny rhetorical similarities to (or is it imitations of?) former President Barack Obama. “[T]he most obvious similarity is that when Shapiro gives a speech, he really sounds an awful lot like the Democrats’ most renowned speechmaker. It’s a once-you-hear-it-you-can’t-unhear-it type of thing, to the point where some Shapiro watchers believe he’s consciously imitating Obama. ‘He didn’t used to talk like this,’ one Democrat who has closely followed Shapiro’s rise up the Pennsylvania political ranks told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid starting a public feud with the governor.”
And while some shrug off the similarity, The Atlantic says it “does carry risk for Shapiro.” Per former Obama advisor David Axelrod, “Authenticity is the coin of the realm, and people want to know that you’re comfortable with yourself and that you’re being yourself.”
Special elections in the age of Trump
The good folks at Ballotpedia have done the research, and they report, “As of September 2026, Democrats had gained 13 state legislative seats in special elections nationwide since January 2025. Republicans had not gained any state legislative seats in special elections.” These 13 include two in Pennsylvania.
Overall, as of today, Republicans hold 55.01% of the nation’s 7,386 state legislative seats, while Democrats hold 43.84%. In numbers, that translates to 4,063 seats for Republicans and 3,238 for Democrats. Of course, Democrats are hoping to dramatically change this figure post-election—and the political winds are in their favor.
Dems eye SEPA senate seats for trifecta
The Inquirer reports, “Gov. Josh Shapiro’s hope for a Democratic state Senate likely hinges on the Philadelphia suburbs, where three swing districts could give his party the majority in the chamber for the first time in 33 years.” Those seats are “the GOP-held seats in the 6th District in Bucks County [Sen. Frank Farry], the 16th in Bucks and Lehigh [Sen. Jarrett Coleman], and the 24th in Montgomery and Berks Counties [Sen. Tracy Pennycuick].”
Currently, Republicans hold a 27-23 majority in the Senate, and Democrats would need to flip three seats to gain an outright majority. Not mentioned in this story, however, is that this assumes Democrats keep the 36th Senate District in Lancaster County, currently held by Dem. state Sen. James Malone, who won a special election last year in this heavily Republican district but now faces Republican Tom Jones in November.
Krasner goes after judge who criticized him
Looks like President Trump isn’t the only one who lashes out at judges who disagree with him. The Inquirer reports that Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner “said Wednesday that the federal judge who accused him of potentially breaking the law while overseeing a post-conviction case had reached ‘baseless,’ illogical, and legally unsupported conclusions — and that the judge should be removed from the case because he had acted more like ‘an advocate against DA Krasner’ than an impartial arbiter.” Of course, on the other side of the equation, some say that Krasner himself has acted more like an advocate for convicted criminals rather than the chief prosecutor he’s elected to be.
‘The real reason the Black family fell apart’
This one is a bit off topic from our usual areas of focus, but it’s so good that it’s worth sharing as it truly impacts so many other issues politicians fight about today. In his podcast, “Conversations with Coleman,” the Free Press’s Coleman Hughes interviews Delano Squires, author of the new book, The Vanishing Black Family. Squires previously worked in Washington, D.C.’s office of gun violence prevention.
Hughes writes, “He told me it was always the same story: a young black man—sometimes the victim, sometimes the perpetrator—but always the focus. What struck him, looking back, was that when the city later rolled out its plan to address racial disparities, the indicators it tracked—incarceration, employment, education—never once included family structure.” Squires contends that family structure “is the largest racial disparity in the country, and almost nobody with real institutional power is willing to say so out loud.”
