In my district there was literally one office that had more than one candidate. There were no offices that sparked any interest. I don’t know about the democrat side.
Yes, Like I said, that was true of this election in my district as well.
Only 1 contested race on the GOP side, LT Governor I think, and one of the county committee or something had 5 people running for 4 seats. Thats it, didn’t even have candidates on the ballot for some positions.
Democrats was the same way, though they had maybe 12 people running for the 5 sets, etc.
There was no real draw.. but I’ve worked every election primary and general for more than a decade, and so this isn’t the first primary that I have worked that has been like that.
This election there were 70 total in person votes. That’s the lowest of any I have ever worked. Next lowest one I believe was around 90... and it too was a primary with really nothing to draw.
By turnout percentages, Democrats showed up, GOP did not. Both were down, but GOP was way down.
This district is always one of the better in terms of turnout percentages in the county, no matter the race...
I have not looked at the county or state as a whole yet, so this is just 1 data point, but it was clear that overall turnout was down for both, lower than any previous election I’ve worked, but that the GOP turnout was far more down.
I am not saying this bears any indication on what will happen in the fall, I am just offering it up as an observation and a data point.
The BIG draw this fall in PA will be the governors race, no Senators are on the ballot, so that’s going to be the big draw.. We’ll see how the race evolves, now that the GOP candidate is formally chosen, though she ran unopposed so its not like we didn’t know who it was going to be.
By all traditional analysis Shapiro should be set to win comfortably. We will see if Stacy Garrit can make it a race. If she can, then PA could get interesting, but if it stays a race where Shapiro is never really under any threat... the GOP would need to NATIONALIZE the house election and get people motivated across the 17 congressional districts to show up.. or at least COMPETITIVE districts.. right now 4 are considered competitive, and all 4 are currently held by GOP. (These are the 4 traditional battleground districts in PA) GOP did well in 2024, flipping the 7th and 8th districts in 2024 to carry all 4 of them.
Right now, to expect the GOP to run the board in all 4 of those districts again is just not likely. Which means the GOP will need to pick up whatever they lose there somewhere else.
I am not saying it can’t happen, but if GOP holds all 4 of those PA seats, any talk of a blue wave is dead... not that they won’t gain seats overall but if the GOP holds all 4 of those election night, there is ZERO change you are going to see some giant blue wave.
The Governors race will be interesting to see what happens, last few races the GOP hasn’t even taken the field.. in fact they actively worked to have Mastriato lose... I don’t know what the state GOP will do with Stacy Garrit.. will this actually be a race, or just another, we put up our sacrificial lamb, and will publicly pretend its a race, but in reality do little if anything to truly try to win.