Two days post-election, the picture is growing clearer not just of which Pennsylvania candidates won or lost, but the margins within those victories or defeats.
As of Thursday night, around 4.9 million of Pennsylvania’s roughly 9 million registered voters cast a vote in the gubernatorial race– the only statewide election on the ballot this year.
All election results are unofficial at this time, as counties across the state keep counting provisional ballots.
Still, the AP has confirmed that four seats flipped to Democrats in the state senate, and at least 8 seats flipped to them in the state house– with four races still uncalled.
Notably though, Republican seats, even in really red districts, saw their margins shrink. In our area, GOP state Sen. Lisa Baker had a rematch against Democratic challenger Jackie Baker— Lisa Baker won with a 23% lead this year. In 2022, same district, same opponent, she had a 35% lead. Thats a 12% margin shrink.
State representatives’ Clint Owlett, Tina Pickett, and Jonathan Fritz all won their races with hefty, 40% leads— they had zero opposition in 2024 or 2022.
Zooming out to statewide, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro got roughly the same amount of votes as his 2022 victory. Republican Stacy Garrity got about 300,000 less than what GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano got in 2022.
The gap in support shows that seat flips and shrinking margins for Pennsylvania Republicans traces, in part, to voter turnout from their party.