{"id":196585,"date":"2026-05-19T11:32:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/196585\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T11:32:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:32:28","slug":"key-races-to-watch-in-the-pennsylvania-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/196585\/","title":{"rendered":"Key races to watch in the Pennsylvania primary"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA (AP\/ KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Democrats in Pennsylvania will settle primary<\/a> fights on Tuesday to shape their congressional slate for the fall election when they hope to capture the state\u2019s four swing districts and ultimately a U.S. House majority.<\/p>\n

Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a> and national Democrats are promoting their chosen candidates over progressive rivals, the latest example of a fissure that has divided<\/a> the party as it grasps for a path back to power in Washington.<\/p>\n

Three of the four swing districts have contested Democratic primaries, in addition to a wide-open primary contest in Philadelphia that will almost surely anoint the next seatholder.<\/p>\n

The campaigns will put Pennsylvania on the front lines of Democratic efforts to retake control of Congress and block the last two years of President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> agenda.<\/p>\n

They will also test Shapiro\u2019s influence<\/a> ahead of a possible White House campaign. He\u2019s heavily favored to win reelection over Republican candidate Stacy Garrity, the state treasurer, so Shapiro is putting his clout on the line in primaries that will determine his party\u2019s chances in November.<\/p>\n

Contested primaries in swing seats<\/p>\n

Three of Democrats\u2019 primary fights are in swing districts held by Republican U.S. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie and Scott Perry.<\/p>\n

Shapiro and the House Democrats\u2019 campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, have teamed up to endorse the same candidate in each of those three contested primaries.<\/p>\n

Washington U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, the chair of the DCCC, said the party wanted \u201ctop tier\u201d candidates who were the strongest to take on Republican incumbents.<\/p>\n

Two of those \u2014 Janelle Stelson<\/a> and Bob Harvie \u2014 are facing opponents on the left, while another, Bob Brooks, is in a four-way primary contest.<\/p>\n

Stelson, a former local television anchor and personality, is running in Perry\u2019s south central Pennsylvania district and competing for the nomination with Justin Douglas, a progressive minister and a Dauphin County commissioner.<\/p>\n

In Fitzpatrick\u2019s district in suburban Philadelphia, Bob Harvie, a Bucks County commissioner, is up against Lucia Simonelli, a first-time candidate and climate activist.<\/p>\n

Brooks\u2019 primary is for the right to challenge Mackenzie in the Allentown-area seat. He\u2019s facing former federal prosecutor Ryan Crosswell, former Northampton County executive Lamont McClure and former legislative aide Carol Obando-Derstine.<\/p>\n

Democrats see opportunity<\/p>\n

In 2018, the last midterm election cycle under Trump, Pennsylvania Democrats flipped four Republican-held congressional seats. In 2024, Perry and Mackenzie\u2019s margins of victory were among the slimmest in that year\u2019s House races \u2014 smaller than the margin by which Trump won those districts in the presidential election.<\/p>\n

Fitzpatrick won more comfortably, but he is just one of three House Republicans elected in districts that also backed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n

Fitzpatrick and Perry are perennial targets of Democrats, and have survived repeatedly. However, Mackenzie is a freshman in his first reelection test.<\/p>\n

Without Trump on the ballot, Democrats hope they can capitalize on weaker Republican turnout. Shapiro won the same districts in 2022, and he\u2019s on the top of the party\u2019s ticket this year.<\/p>\n

A Philadelphian will go to Washington<\/p>\n

In Philadelphia, the Democratic primary for a seat in Congress there is widely viewed as a toss-up among three candidates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No Republican is seeking that party\u2019s nomination, making the Democratic primary winner a shoo-in to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Dwight Evans.<\/p>\n

It features a familiar name to many in the city: Sharif Street, a state senator, former state party chairman and son of the city\u2019s former two-term mayor, John F. Street. He is backed by Mayor Cherelle Parker, former Gov. Ed Rendell and the city\u2019s building trades unions.<\/p>\n

A state lawmaker, Rep. Chris Rabb, was endorsed by progressive stalwarts U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and online streamer Hasan Piker<\/a> and has drawn financial backing from the Congressional Progressive Caucus.<\/p>\n

Dr. Ala Stanford, a pediatric surgeon who started a Black doctors\u2019 consortium during the COVID-19 pandemic, was helped by millions of dollars from 314 Action, a left-leaning political action committee aimed at electing scientists to Congress.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Philadelphia voters to choose new US representative for the first time in a decade<\/a>Democrats hope for top-of-the-ticket help<\/p>\n

For Shapiro, the election year is an opportunity to show his political strength in a premier battleground state should he decide to run for president in 2028.<\/p>\n

In addition to trying to win his own race, Shapiro is aiming to help Democrats flip key Republican-held U.S. House seats in Pennsylvania and deliver Democratic control of the state Legislature to advance his own agenda.<\/p>\n

Shapiro is on track to break his own campaign spending record and, in a step to help races up and down the ballot, has plunged more than $900,000 so far this election cycle into the state Democratic Party\u2019s accounts.<\/p>\n

Republicans acknowledge Shapiro\u2019s electoral strength, and many in the party hope that Garrity can at least make it a close contest to help protect other Republicans on the ballot.<\/p>\n

When do polls close?<\/p>\n

Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s on the ballot?<\/p>\n

The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for U.S. House, lieutenant governor, state Senate and state House, as well as a special election in state House District 196.<\/p>\n

Who gets to vote?<\/p>\n

Only voters registered with a political party may participate in that party\u2019s primary. Democrats may not vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. Independent or unaffiliated voters may not participate in either primary.<\/p>\n

How many voters are there?<\/p>\n

As of May 11, there were nearly 9 million registered voters in Pennsylvania. Registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans, 3.8 million to 3.6 million. About 1.2 million were not registered with any party.<\/p>\n

How many people actually vote?<\/p>\n

Roughly 1.1 million Democratic primary votes and about 953,000 Republican primary votes were cast in the 2024 presidential primaries, held long after Trump and President Joe Biden had clinched their nominations.<\/p>\n

In the more competitive U.S. Senate primaries in 2022, Republican and Democratic voters each cast roughly 1.3 million votes.<\/p>\n

How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?<\/p>\n

About 45% of 2024 Democratic presidential primary vote and 17% of the Republican primary vote was cast before primary day.<\/p>\n

As of Thursday, about 385,000 Democratic primary ballots and about 129,000 Republican primary ballots had already been cast in Tuesday\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

When are early and absentee votes released?<\/p>\n

Vote release practices vary from county to county, but most counties release results from absentee voting along with in-person Election Day voting throughout the night. Roughly a third of the counties release all or almost all of their early and absentee vote results in the first update of the night.<\/p>\n

How long does vote-counting usually take?<\/p>\n

In the 2024 primary, the AP first reported results at 8:01 p.m. ET, or about a minute after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 2 a.m. ET with about 91% of total votes counted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (AP\/ KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Democrats in Pennsylvania will settle primary fights on Tuesday to shape their congressional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[836,28,69,71,70,5638,1824],"class_list":["post-196585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-election","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-primary-election","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}