Pennsylvania is already a swing state in presidential politics. And the Keystone State will draw plenty of attention in the 2022 midterm elections, too.
Both its governorship and the Senate seat held for 12 years by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey will be open. With crowded candidate fields for each race, Pennsylvania will offer a test case for national political sentiment, particularly as former President Donald Trump ponders a 2024 comeback bid against President Joe Biden.
The governor’s race stands out, though, as the state chief executive’s job in Harrisburg has mostly gone back and forth between the parties evenly for decades. When Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, won the governorship in 2014 by beating an incumbent Republican, it marked the first time since 1971 a party did not hold the governorship for eight years.
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So far, three Republican candidates have declared their bid for the governorship to replace Wolf, who can’t run again due to term limits.
Another handful of candidates are expected to be in the running for the GOP nomination. That list includes former Rep. Lou Barletta, Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale, and Pittsburgh attorney Jason Richey. Meanwhile, Attorney General Josh Shapiro is considered the top choice for Democrats once he declares he’s in.
“You have a split energy here because you also have an open Senate race. It’s rare that you have an open Senate race and an open governor’s race,” Brian Rosenwald, an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania and expert on the state’s politics, told the Washington Examiner. “And so, you’ve got a lot of people who’ve been kind of chasing the Senate race and have declared for that. I think that that is kind of keeping things kind of in stasis and keeping them from really developing quickly.”
In the fluid GOP field, one name making headlines is State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who in recently released videos appeared to be near the Capitol building on the day of the Jan. 6 riot. The lawmaker previously asserted that he had left when the scene became violent.
A Test of Trump
Mastriano and Barletta remain two allies of Trump, though it’s unclear whether the former president will endorse a Republican gubernatorial candidate.
Barletta has already positioned his campaign around mitigating illegal immigration, while Mastriano was an ardent supporter of the former president’s claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 presidential race.
Both firebrands have also been vocally critical of Wolf’s COVID-19 lockdowns, which were among the strictest in the country. Pennsylvania has also been slower than other states to reopen its economy, with Wolf waiting until Memorial Day to allow restaurants and entertainment venues to operate at full capacity.
Rosenwald argues that Republicans may use Wolf’s handling of the pandemic to sway voters against the Democratic nominee, but as life begins to normalize, the effectiveness of lockdown messaging will wear off.
“I think they’re gonna zero in on it. I think it’s going to be woefully ineffective though,” Rosenwald said. “That’s a long time to try to sustain some anger over something. And Josh Shapiro can always say ‘I’m not Tom Wolf.'”
The Right Appeal
Shapiro, the likely Democratic gubernatorial nominee, has been attorney general since 2017. The former state representative and Montgomery County commissioner outperformed every candidate on the ballot in November, including President Joe Biden, who played up his Pennsylvania ties during his campaign.
A combination of his name recognition and an ability to win a wide range of voters will likely make Shapiro a serious contender, especially if he can distance himself from Wolf’s lockdowns and from the far-left wing of his party.
Rosenwald argues that Shapiro’s appeal and ties to the crucial Philadelphia suburbs could help him clear the primary field.
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“He’s not the most popular on the Left, but he might be the most popular Democratic politician in the state,” Rosenwald said. “No one’s going to want to tangle with him in a primary. And a lot of the ambitious Democrats, they’re all going to end up running for Senate.”
