HARRISBURG, Pa. —
The balance of power in the Pennsylvania Legislature will be in the hands of the voters in the 2026 midterm elections.
“This is a big one. It’s extremely important because it’s close. We don’t know who’s going to have control of the House,” said Kristin Kanthak, associate professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh. “But the other really big, important thing is these elections are going to determine who’s in charge in the presidential election in two years.”
All 203 seats are up for election in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where Democrats hold the majority by three seats.
The Pennsylvania State Senate is split 27-23, with Republicans in control.
Kanthak said traditionally, the party of the president loses seats in Congress and state legislatures during midterms.
“So that would point to the Democrats. One of the issues, though, and we see this a lot in Pennsylvania, is that there just aren’t that many seats up for grabs,” Kanthak said. “Most of the districts in the state house are either very clearly in the Republican column or very clearly in the Democratic column.”
Kanthak said there are only a few districts, including some in western Pennsylvania, that will determine who has the power in Pennsylvania.
“Western Pennsylvania tends to have very close elections, and we often don’t think about that because we think of Pittsburgh as being this kind of Democratic stronghold, and the further out you get, the redder it gets…” Kanthak said. “The county that often has the most Republican votes for it is Allegheny County, because it’s big and it’s pretty evenly divided.”
Many are watching to see if the election will result in Pennsylvania’s first trifecta since 2014, when Republicans had full control of the legislature.
The last Democratic trifecta was in 1993.
“I think there’s a decent possibility that we would see a trifecta in PA. Partly because the Democrats don’t need to pick up that many seats in order to have the Senate. Polls are looking very good for Josh Shapiro right now,” Kanthak said.
According to Kanthak, it’s expected Gov. Josh Shapiro will experience the coattail effect, which means his supporters would vote blue across the ballot.