Pennsylvania Democrats didn’t have a great night on primary night, April 23^rd, 2024. Between a series of questionable candidates for statewide office being nominated and the most controversial candidates getting congressional bids, there’s a lot for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party to be ashamed of regarding their results. To give an extensive list of all of the contests that were significant, I will be going through each one, why it is important, and why the specific Democratic candidate is damaged or underperformed expectations. Let’s get to the stories.

            Starting off with the statewide candidates, the Treasurer contest had a lot of hope for state representative Ryan Bizzarro (D-PA) being nominated and running a strong campaign against incumbent Stacy Garrity (R-PA). He faced Erin McClelland, someone who has faced questions over her campaign finance handling issues and has self-fundraised a paltry amount of money for her campaign while struggling to fundraise for her campaign from individual donors according to RRH Elections. While one would expect that Democrats would overwhelmingly back Bizzarro as the mainstream candidate, McClellan was projected the winner by Decision Desk HQ setting up Garrity for an easier than expected re-election bid owing to the weakness of her Democratic opponent in the general election. This also puts a goose egg on Bizzarro’s electoral record where his rising star within the state legislature will now be questioned as people wonder how he lost to someone with the ethical problems as McClelland.

            The Auditor General election was going to be harder for Democrats to win in general owing to weaker candidates overall, but the hope among some moderates was that they could thwart Malcolm Kenyatta, a progressive LGBT lawmaker from getting the nod to face incumbent Timothy DeFoor (R-PA). That was not the case and Kenyatta won the primary election with about 60% of the vote, allowing DeFoor to immediately frame the election as a contest between sane centrism on the right and fringe progressivism on the left regarding monitoring potential waste and abuse in the state government. With DeFoor being seen as an immediate rising star within the party, a resounding victory over Kenyatta would allow him to position himself ahead of either a 2026 gubernatorial bid or a 2028 senatorial bid.

            The one silver lining for the Democrats was that the Attorney General election gave them former Auditor General Eugene DePasquale (D-PA) who could feasibly make the election tougher for Republicans versus some of the lower name Philly-based progressives. This is because there were many progressives that all ran at the same time splitting the progressive vote while DePasquale ran up his base in Western Pennsylvania around Erie and Pittsburgh, two large metropolitan areas outside of SEPA. This is a minor consolation for the other contests being less competitive, but he will still have to face Republican York County District Attorney Dave Sunday (R-PA) in the general election.

            Moving onto congressional primaries, there were two primaries where the GOP were threatened with less-than-optimal candidates. State Representative Ryan MacKenzie (R-PA) pulled ahead of Chris Dellicker and Maria Montero in the GOP primary to face incumbent Susan Wild (D-PA) in the 7^th Congressional District in one of the most hotly contested seats nationally, while Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) easily dispatched Mark Houck (R-PA) in the Republican primary to keep the swingy 1^st Congressional District in Republican-favored hands. For Republicans, these two results were the best possible outcomes as opposed to Dellicker and Houck prevailing.

            For Democrats, they chose incumbent Summer Lee (D-PA) over Bhavini Patel (D-PA) by a large margin in the 12^th Congressional District suggesting that the far-left streak in Pittsburgh isn’t over yet. In the 10^th Congressional District, Janelle Stelson (D-PA) won over Mike O’Brien (D-PA) in what can be seen as a recruitment farce on the part of national Democrats. While boasting moderately capable fundraising numbers, Stelson has struggled with several foot-in-mouth moments that will come up in her bid to challenge Congressman Scott Perry (R-PA) according to RRH Elections. With those two elections suggesting that Republicans chose stronger candidates while Democrats chose weaker or controversial candidates, it does suggest that the Pennsylvania GOP heads into the general election with a greater position of strength than what original predictions for what the primaries might have suggested otherwise.

Sources: Pennsylvania Primary Election Results 2024 – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

2024 Pennsylvania Primary Preview (rrhelections.com)