Carolyn Carluccio has won the Republican primary race for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, setting the stage for the general election in November.
Carluccio, a Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas judge, will face the Democratic nominee in November’s general election to fill the open seat vacated by the late Chief Justice Max Baer, a Democrat who died in 2022. Tuesday’s primary race marked a key milestone for GOP voters in the state, as they picked between Carluccio, a more centrist candidate, and Patricia McCullough, a right-wing candidate who is a commonwealth court judge.
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Superior Court Judge Daniel McCaffery won the Democratic primary against Deborah Kunselman, also a Superior Court judge. McCaffery was endorsed by the state Democratic Party.
The primary offered the Republican Party a “good opportunity to get a sense of where the energy in the party is, what segment of the party is able to get their people to go on the polls on a random Tuesday in May when there hasn’t been wall-to-wall television advertising,” Michael Nelson, a political scientist at Pennsylvania State University, told CNN.
“Given that the Mastriano wing of the Republican Party was so dominant in the elections last fall, it will be interesting to see whether they can keep up that momentum or whether the standard-issue conservative wing of the party is able to rebound,” he continued.
Carluccio was widely seen as the establishment candidate, receiving the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s endorsement, along with $600,000 in donations.
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McCullough, representing the aforementioned “Mastriano wing,” was widely seen as the anti-establishment candidate and conservative firebrand. She called herself “a strict constitutionalist judge” and denounced those who advertised against her as “Republican elites” whose opposition toward her stems from knowing she “will not compromise to their agenda.”
The state Supreme Court is held by a 4-2 liberal majority, meaning a Republican victory in November could shorten the gap in the GOP’s favor. It could also serve as a major boon for the party, which is currently on the back foot in the state. Democrats hold the governor’s mansion and a House majority, while Republicans hold a majority in the Senate.
