Overview
It’s over. As became clear within a few hours on November 7th, Daniel McCaffery won a resounding victory to become the newest justice on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, defeating Carolyn Carluccio by a considerable margin.
Along with a blowout win for McCaffery, the Democratic Party swept a litany of lower court and down-ballot positions across the state, including many vital ones on school boards, county commissioners, and the like. More on those in another post, but I cannot understate the utter massacre Republicans suffered on November 7th.
Relatedly, said massacre was propelled by incredible numbers at the top of the ballot. When making calculations for partisanship and turnout in pre-election forecasts, there are consistent variables that are taken into account when doing so. For instance, Northampton County is a typical light-blue Democratic county that votes to the tune of 51-49 or narrower most of the time. Instead, McCaffery destroyed Carluccio there 57-43, a 14-point win.
Because of far-rosier than typical margins for Democrats like that particular example all across the state, McCaffery slightly exceeded the top end of the range I projected he could win by (2-6). More on that shortly, but very impressive on his part. This also reflects the enduring strength of the new Democratic coalition in Pennsylvania and the looming shadow of their firewall, sustained by consistent usage of mail-in ballots.
The Numbers
As I mentioned many times over the course of tracking mail-in ballots for this race as they came in, Democrats needed a sturdy 400,000+ vote firewall to be decisive favorites to win. On the morning of the election, they hit that firewall and went on to exceed it throughout the day by a fair bit. All told, the final mail margin for McCaffery is on track to be roughly 7% higher than his required firewall.
And as you’ll notice in the latest results, he’s winning by about that much. How about that for handicapping? We still have some provisionals and late mail to count, but I’m very happy with how the firewall worked out in proportion to the margins involved.
If you’re curious as to how this stacks up to the last Supreme Court race in 2021, here’s the breakdown of final mail after the results were certified.
Slimmer margins for Democrats at that time period correlated with lower proportions on Election Day, thus allowing Kevin Brobson, the Republican candidate at the time, to win. However, when we look at what happened this year, the mail results correspond with a very different story.
You’ll see that while the GOP slightly improved on their 2021 showing, Democrats improved even more, allowing them to widen the mail margin far more than in 2021. And given how the early vote and Election Day results in PA are highly proportional, this translated into an even better Democratic performance regarding the latter than in 2021. Frankly, the results of which exceeded even my most optimistic projections. High propensity voters turned out in droves and there were a lot of soft/crossover Republican voters in the fold as well.
Of note: IND ballots are incorporated in a separate analysis. Those types of ballots always break heavily for Democrats, usually in the range of 30-35 points. This has borne out in every cycle since their inception and it was no different here. So, when applying them after the difference, the Dem firewall is actually higher (and will continue to grow once we get those provisionals in). But for the sake of simplified understanding, I didn’t address them in the lead-up to Election Day.
Another historical point that worked against the GOP is the return rate of mail-in ballots. In 2021 it was roughly 1.5% in favor of Democrats. As of today’s writing, the rate is 3.3%, more than double. This is actually better than what it was in 2022 when Fetterman beat Oz by 5 points. Although limited in its use, the return rate does have some useful indicators when it comes to trends that favor or disfavor either party as returns come in.
With those numbers in mind, let’s revert back to the overview I had the night before Election Day. The median case at the time was McCaffery by 3.8. Had I had the opportunity to revise that projection after the following morning’s mail update dropped, it would’ve been McCaffery by 4.5. This is because the final drop when it came to breakdowns and cumulative returns was more Democratic than anticipated. Not the worst problem to have, if you ask me!
The funny thing is, had southeastern Pennsylvania behaved like it usually does on Election Day in an off year, the margins of 3.8 and 4.5 would have been extremely close to the final result if their respective event scenarios occurred. I ran the numbers and had events unfolded per normal parameters, those margins would’ve only been off by 0.3 points and 0.5 points on the under, respectively. Adjustments will be made accordingly, but this situation is a good example of why I try to avoid giving exact margins. We can get very close to the final result and nail down who wins by analyzing mail-ins, but accounting for unexpected events is another story. I will say, however, that one thing I was certain of was that Republicans would not have as good of an Election Day as in 2021. In fact, just about everything mentioned in this post occurred as expected.
Why, you may ask? The answer lies in the results. While mail-ins gave a good signal, turnout on Election Day itself completed the story of what would happen. Shifts of the electoral variety occurred from one end of the state to another, propelling some interesting margins in certain areas.
The Great Marginal Shift
What you see is the current map of McCaffery’s win per the NYT. Some county leans are expected, others, not so much. As I previously noted, the nature of off-year elections in Pennsylvania can make for some strange coalitional breakdowns and conditions. I mean, look at blue Berks!
Relatedly, you’ll notice some unusual breakdowns on this map. Red Erie aside, margins for Carluccio were lower than expected in a lot of places. Below is a table breaking down McCaffery’s margins in some notable counties rounded to the nearest whole digit. Then there are some additional ones from recent PA statewide elections to give you more context on what happened here. They’re also all rounded accordingly.
This is just a smattering of what stood out to me in the aftermath. There are others, but by and large, you get the point. One damning issue on Carluccio’s part was the fact that she did no better than Oz did in most counties back in 2022, especially in relation to Brobson ‘21. This was evident in early returns when McCaffery was outperforming McLaughlin by small margins on average in the first few rural counties to fully report.
Furthermore, in many of those examples you saw, McCaffery outperformed quite a few recent statewide Democrats. Let’s use the Northampton example again - there, he somehow managed to do slightly better than even Josh Shapiro did in 2022. This trend of performing well ahead of expectations continued across most of southeastern Pennsylvania and GOP strongholds like Lancaster, Westmoreland, and York.
And when it came to blue counties like Philadelphia, Allegheny, and Montgomery, they all broke for McCaffery like they usually do for most statewide Democratic candidates, contrary to the claims of some people who thought there would be local factors at play. For instance, suggestions swirled about the hotly-contested Allegheny Executive race possibly eroding McCaffery’s margin there and Carluccio’s native Montgomery boosting her margin in the area. Neither prediction came to pass.
Listen, I’m a big proponent of PA’s strong regionalism, but the problem I’ve seen from some individuals is they read too much into it within the wrong context. Especially when it comes to western PA. Allegheny is not going to penalize a candidate from Philadelphia just because they were not the chosen candidate of that county. As usual, they delivered 60%+ of the vote for McCaffery as they did for Fetterman, McLaughlin, Casey, and many others before.
As for red Erie, there are some explanations for that. McCaffery devoted relatively little media/ad time to that market per FEC filings, so Carluccio dominated there. Inner Erie turnout was also not that great and the county often swings in strange ways thanks to its demographics. I wouldn’t read too much into it. In fact, most down-ballot Democrats in the county did very well, vastly outrunning McCaffery.
Overall, the story is pretty clear. One of the biggest problems for Pennsylvania Republicans is their declining margins in a number of key counties vital to their chances of success statewide. McCaffery somehow keeping Westmoreland to an 11-point loss is nothing short of incredible, especially since Biden lost it by almost 30 points just three years earlier! And not just that, the GOP continues to get flogged in the suburbs. Which, funnily enough…
The Revolt of the Suburbs
If you’re a Pennsylvania Democrat trying to win statewide, suburbs are key to your cause. Especially in southeastern Pennsylvania. With its vast reservoirs of high-propensity Democratic voters, I thought the suburbs would hold their own and power McCaffery to a comfortable win even in an off-year. They did, but I was not expecting them to expand Democratic margins to the extent they got to this year. Winning Bucks by 10 points and getting Lehigh to a 14-point Democratic win is something you would expect to happen in a flashpoint election year, but not here and now. Turnout surged as well, with this election seeing much higher participation rates than 2021’s Supreme Court race. Montgomery got to ~42% turnout!
Speaking of Montgomery, what happened there does not bode well for Republican attempts to solve their issues with appealing to the electorate. Carolyn Carluccio was from Montgomery County and tried to burnish her bipartisan credentials, relying on her soft temperament and general moderate appeal to cut down on the usual Democratic margins there. Not only did she fail to do so, she lost her home county by a whopping 32 points, even worse than Oz 2022 (-28) and Trump 2020 (-27). Do you understand the level it takes to perform worse than Trump of all people there?
That’s the price of trading suburbia for rural and irregular voters. To a greater degree since Dobbs, Republicans have been soundly rejected by those high-propensity suburbanites by increasing margins regardless of the types of candidates they run. They’ve tried Mastriano, Oz, Carluccio, Trump, etc. All have fallen flat in the gamut from the most “moderate” Republicans in Pennsylvania you can find to some of the most extreme. Saying you’re not going to ban or rule on abortion doesn’t fly with those educated voters who, in fact, know that you do have the ability to influence abortion rulings if put in a position of power. Let alone other matters such as election denial, fair maps, etc.
Perhaps even more worrying for Republicans is that there continues to be plenty of room to fall in those Pennsylvania suburbs. The southeastern portion of the state is one of the few areas that is growing in population while being subject to leftward trends. Rural counties seeing increasing GOP margins are mostly shrinking or have limits as to how much they can fall for Democrats. Pennsylvania rurals operate very differently from, say, Mississippi where 90%+ of voters there will vote Republican. This is due to less racial polarization, stronger ancestral roots, and/or small city centers that provide some sort of floor.
Bundle that with the nature of raw vote shifts and you can see why the math is the way it is. A couple of points to the right in, say, Indiana and Jefferson counties are easily wiped out by a shift of half a point left in Chester County and along with it thousands of votes. And Chester is by far from the only vote-rich county in the state. This phenomenon as a whole makes southeastern Pennsylvania a force to be reckoned with and puts it in the driver’s seat to determine how elections go statewide.
Don’t get me wrong. As I’ve continued to preach in countless election forecasts, the GOP still does have a path to win in Pennsylvania. But the kind of path that requires such a feat is extremely difficult to achieve in the short term. Presidential years are usually their best shot at this point where the coalitions that come into play provide openings as we saw in 2020. Even off-year elections aren’t that fruitful for them anymore, given what happened this November.
Make no mistake - the suburbs are revolting. 2023 is the latest in a multitude of election cycles signaling their continued leftward trend, which is showing no signs of stopping for the time being.
2024 and Beyond
Having said all of that, the 2024 election is now less than a year away. With both a presidential and Senate race at the top of the ticket and scores of critical down-ballot races such as the State House and Senate on the line, PA will be having an incredibly busy year. The stakes are even higher with the potential to transform coalitions and electorates alike.
One thing is certain - now that we have troves of useful data from multiple cycles with consistent usage of mail-in ballots (2021, 2022, and 2023), the outcome of next year’s races should be even easier to track. This is perhaps one of the most important things 2023 did for the state - giving us yet another data point of mail-in breakdowns and being able to use it in comparison to midterms and prior off years.
Still, we have some time ahead of us before we really start kicking things into gear. For now, Pennsylvania Democrats can relish in keeping their 5-2 Democratic supermajority on the Supreme Court and with it, control of important issues that could come before it. McCaffery and his team dominated the airwaves, had an advantage in spending, and did what they needed to do to win. The Carluccio camp tried, but they fell short.
But perhaps most critically, the long-term vision is clear. For Democrats, winning rests on getting their usual margins out of Allegheny County and running up Assad margins in SEPA. For Republicans, it will be to stop those things from happening. And god forbid they further erode their vote shares in counties like Lancaster. Democrats are already winning handily without that problem.
I’ve heard some classify PA as a blue-leaning swing state. That would be the ideal assessment for it in the near future, I would say.
Until next time.