Overview
It’s been almost a week since the May 16th primary and the dust has more or less settled. Although we had a number of interesting races across the state, none were more prominent than the party primaries for PA Supreme Court. I first wrote about it here, so it’s time to revisit it in light of what happened and analyze the aftermath.
As usual, we’ll look at each side’s primary, some initial numbers, the factors driving this race, and what could happen in the fall now that both sides have chosen their nominee for the general election. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the situation has become more straightforward than I had originally anticipated.
Democratic Primary
As I wrote in my post about the state of the race before the primary, McCaffery was the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination. That came into full force on May 16th, where he won in a 20 point landslide and swept Kunselman away in the eastern part of the state. Relatedly, I also mentioned that we were highly likely to see significant regional splits due to each candidate having different bases of support. That bore out in the map you see below, where Kunselman’s Beaver County roots won her some support in the west. McCaffery blew her out in SEPA and kept the margins close in counties beyond that, giving him his landslide.
One way or another, McCaffery did what he needed to do. But while we’re at it, I’m going to point out that he somehow won Bedford County by 10 points, which completely ruined the chance of us having a beautiful west/east split on the map. Grrrrrrr. What a weirdly random county for him to win, but here we are.
Anyways, just remember that regionalism is a hell of a thing in Pennsylvania and it dominates a lot of statewide races, even to this day. It was a big factor in John Fetterman’s win last year and you’ll see traces of it in various elections depending on the context. To observers armed with this fact, this map is not surprising in the slightest.
Republican Primary
This primary, on the other hand, was very interesting. Why, you may ask? Despite the fact that on paper and in practice with the contest being far less competitive than the Democratic primary, Carolyn Carluccio ran a closer-than-expected race against Patricia McCullough, only winning against her by ~7 points. This came as an unexpected surprise to a number of observers and politicos within both parties.
As I said before and I’ll reiterate again: McCullough had practically no money and was almost invisible anywhere. She was all but blacked out by the state party and pushed to the side to make Carluccio as visible as possible. Because of that, I was very confident in Carluccio winning, which she did, but it says a lot about PA GOP voters that for those of them who recognized McCullough, they immediately went off the deep end to vote for her. And when I talk about the deep end, I refer to a sitting judge who engaged in the following activities.
McCullough was one of the only judges who tried to block the certification of PA’s votes for Biden in 2020 and she touted that fact proudly, among a long list of many other things. A perfect resume for a base that continues to slide down the rabbit hole of victim mentality and conspiracies. In fact, I’m absolutely certain that had McCullough had money and more GOP voters heard of her, she would’ve won the primary, hands down. Even more, her influence was not isolated - Carluccio had to entertain some election skepticism during her campaign to quell some of the restless voices on the right.
PA GOP primary voters are a special breed of crazy, I’ll tell you that much.
P.S - You’ll notice that the primary map for Republicans is far more jumbled than the Democratic one. Along with GOP voters being a mite more skeptical of SEPA Republican nominees, the election denialism stuff and other far right policies weighed in a little more with their candidate preference (when aware) rather than regionalism. I figured this would happen, so it wasn’t worth weighing in too much on that front.
Initial Numbers
So, we have our candidates - McCaffery and Carluccio. A cursory look at the numbers from the primary spells out a few interesting data points to consider for November.
Democratic Primary
~1,050,000 registered voters participated
~27% participation rate
Republican Primary
~825,000 registered voters participated
~24% participation rate
Right off the bat, you’ll notice that Democrats turned out at a higher rate than Republicans did, both in the raw vote and in percentage of registered voters. This is important because Pennsylvania is a closed primary state, where only registered voters of parties can vote in their respective primaries. Overall, ~3% more Democrats showed up than Republicans.
And as we’re all now aware, the GOP primary ended up being the far more contested race, yet they couldn’t match Dems in voting rates. The latter was driven by robust turnout in places like Allegheny County, where over 30% of all registered voters participated, and Lackawanna County, where over 80% of mail-in ballots were returned! Moreover, in places where ballots were requested ahead of time in rates proportional to each party’s numbers, Republicans were routinely returning them at rates several points below that of their Democratic counterparts.
All in all, it’s a far cry from what happened last year, where Republicans actually voted at a higher rate than Democrats in the PA Senate primary by ~100,000 votes and a few points higher in the vote share of primary voters. Not that it did the GOP any good that fall, but even in an off-year election, the fact that you can’t replicate that in what’s supposed to be a more favorable situation for your party is not good. You could argue that the 2022 GOP primary was more competitive, which is the point. Bottom line - there’s less enthusiasm among Republicans than I had originally expected.
Factors of the Race
By now, the overall picture is starting to become clear. And frankly, it reflects a lot of what’s been happening in the state and around the country post-Dobbs and 2022. Here we are in a random off-year election that Democrats used to not do well at in the past, but are now starting to show up and vote in sustained numbers, giving routine overperformances.
Reminder: the 2021 PA Supreme Court race was very, very close for Dems despite the absolutely garbage environment for them that year. The numbers I see from this primary over the 2021 one paints a far rosier picture and coalitional support for them.
But it would be remiss to withhold as to why that is happening. I’ve spelled it out before and I’ll spell it out again.
Hot button issues favorable to Dems - abortion, election denialism, etc.
PA’s status as a competitive state with risk posed to those issues should things swing the wrong way.
Healthy turnout from urban and suburban counties not named Philadelphia (what’s considered healthy for off-year elections, at least).
The GOP’s predisposition to choose the nuttiest option available when it’s known to them.
Far better understanding of the stakes involved in a Supreme Court race, especially given what happened in 2022. The Democratic coalition of higher propensity and educated voters understand this very well - the Wisconsin SC election last month is a good example of this.
An act of God, possibly.
To put things simply, the stakes are clear-cut and the underlying factors driving them are pretty straightforward. You don’t want another situation like what happened in North Carolina where a Dem majority on the court flipped to a GOP majority after years of maneuvering and losing races that set up a domino effect in the long term. You want room for error in a 5-2 majority on the PA Supreme Court, not 4-3 should Carolyn Carluccio win in November.
Race Prediction
When I first wrote about this race last month, I wasn’t ready to give any insights or forecasts in favor of a particular candidate for the general election until I saw what happened in the primary.
Well, the primary happened. And now I’m pretty comfortable with saying that McCaffery is favored this fall for the open Supreme Court seat. There’s still six months to go and a lot of things could change in that time, but he clearly has the momentum right now and PA Dems are riding off of a high of unusually strong participation and performances in practically every race post-Dobbs.
And it’s not just that - by making herself open to election skepticism, Carluccio is leaving herself open to a lot of attack ads on that front, which I expect Dems are going to capitalize on heavily. You can ask Doug Mastriano how having to face stuff like that worked out for him.
In the meantime, onwards to November! Months of fundraising, spending, shifting tides, and more, are sure to come. If McCaffery and PA Dems are smart, they’ll stay on top of their momentum.