Election Day In Pennsylvania - 2022

Results!

• Josh Shapiro and Austin Davis trounced Mastriano and Delrosso in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race.
• John Fetterman won a seat in the United States Senate.
• Susan Wild won a third term in the House of Representatives, this time with the addition of Carbon County to her district.
• Nick Miller picked up a seat in the newly drawn fourteenth senate district for Democrats in the state senate.
• Jarrett Coleman, member of the Parkland School Board, won election in the sixteenth senate district, formerly longtime senator Pat Browne's domain.
• Mike Schlossberg won re-election in a new, less-Democratic, more suburban district including western Allentown and most of Upper Macungie Township.  Full disclosure: Schlossberg employed me during this general election.  I am proud that we outperformed the partisan lean of the district; we earned more than sixty percent of the vote in a fifty-six percent Democratic district.
• In Allentown's east, Josh Siegel, Democratic member of city council, won a newly-drawn seat in the PA House.
• In central and southern Allentown and Emmaus borough, Democrat Peter Schweyer won re-election.
• Joe Emrick, a Republican incumbent of Nazareth, held on to a seat in the PA House.  He won with a very slim margin against our friend Anna Thomas.
• In western Lehigh County, Ryan Mackenzie won unopposed a seat in the PA House.

Takeaways

I did not talk much with Republicans at the polling place this time.  I knew i was in for a long day, and did not want to feel as exhausted as i did after the primaries.  But one guy grunted "loser" at me in passing, and a few said some pointed "No thank you"s or something to that effect.  I think the civility of days gone by will not return for some decades.

Josh Shapiro blew the election denier Mastriano out of the water, winning by almost fifteen points.  This looks like a forceful repudiation of candidates who openly promise to meddle in elections.  But in the positive case, Shapiro is a solid candidate who campaigned well.  He has been an effective Attorney General with deep humanity.  And his rhetorical prowess has prompted presidential conjecture.  Indeed, his presence may have propelled the Democratic takeover of the state house.

Maybe it is a little obvious to say that invigorating gubernatorial candidates propel downballot victories.  DeSantis is the Republican counterexample to Shapiro.  But Democrats have been over-focused on the top of the ballot for too long.  They have fallen in love with big personalities like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama while splitting tickets as deep into blue territory as New England.  Polarization is making that less palatable; as Romney-style Republicans become endangered and the likes of Chris Christie fall in line with Trump, i suspect ticket-splitters will become likewise rare.  But, additionally, as Democrats adopt more data-driven, consultant-style campaigns and seek to turn back the tide of gerrymandering, they are dipping more into state-level races.  This is good for several reasons.  For one, parties develop their bench of talent here.  Shapiro and Fetterman (and Obama) came from somewhere.  But more imminently, states offer an extra layer of protection against the worst of Republicans' minoritarian theocracy.  In Pennsylvania, the Democratic takeover of the state house means a sweeping consitutional amendment to ban abortion and restrict voting will die.  There is a lot more room for good governance now.

—Lucas