Republicans Just Lost a Statewide Election in Pennsylvania. What Does That Mean for the Future?

Slate ^ | Nov 4, 2025 | Molly Olmstead

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Pennsylvania voters have rejected a Republican effort to remove three Democrats from the state Supreme Court.

The stakes of Tuesday’s election were high: Had Pennsylvanians voted to remove the justices, the court would have gone from a seven-member Democratic majority to a four-member group with a complete ideological split. The three justices’ vacant seats would not have been filled until another election at the end of 2027.

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court regularly holds these kinds of votes for its justices. The justices are first selected in partisan elections, but at the end of their 10-year terms, voters then decide whether to extend them for another 10 in nonpartisan elections. Once in, justices rarely get voted out, but Republicans campaigned hard this year in the hopes of changing the balance of power on the state’s court.

But if the justices are booted, the seats become open again, and voters once again decide who will be placed on the court during the next election. The court currently has seven justices, two of whom are Republicans. So if the three justices on Tuesday’s ballot had been ousted, and if Republicans had then successfully replaced them with their own judges during the next election, then went on to lose those three seats, the GOP would have flipped the court.

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TOPICS: Pennsylvania; State and Local
KEYWORDS: 2025election; 2026; 2028; concern; concerntroll; concerntrolling; courts; midterms; pa; paping; pennsylvania; shapiro; slatereally; swingstate

[Ge0ffrey]

The left never sleeps. They crave power. Be vigilant.

[kvanbrunt2]

The retention elections cannot be compared to other elections as the candidates do not display party affiliation. Again this is the republicans under Pileggi i think that made up these rules. I have yet to compare to see if the republican areas of the state actually voted to retain these judges. That will be a significant finding. I’m not sure if the published results now in Delco allow for that analysis.

[kvanbrunt2]

Plus we have lost statewide before and in the case of the prior AG race Republicans did split out and crossed to vote for the dem AG at about 2-3 percent (4-6 net %). I call these republicans international communists. Abortion was the reason for the AG but that doesn’t matter. When you get so called republicans voting for non conservative ideals it means they don’t have conservative ideals.

[ViLaLuz]

So many of our citizens have gone dark after years of brain washing.
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^^^THIS^^^

[Georgia Girl 2]

Election fraud is still alive and well. 🙄

[Antoninus]

I still think Republicans in the northeast are scared that the Trump effect will hurt them by encouraging Democrat turn-out. If I had to guess, I'll bet most of those candidates who lost were playing defense on the Trump question and did not want him to come rally the base in their districts.

The result is that the Trump effect hurt them anyway and they did not reap any of the potential benefits of Trump rallying the base.

Message to Republicans: Running away from Trump is ALWAYS a losing proposition. If you want MAGA voters to come out, you need to embrace MAGA. If you run from it, you're still going to lose...and even worse than you would have.

[stevio]

I just mentioned in another thread that I saw no GOP advertisements this cycle. I had to actively search who and what to vote for. Yea, this wasn’t good. Do people think Trump can do it all? Really, I want nothing to do with politics but that would be, to me and my family’s, detriment.