Saving the downballot<\/p>\n
Sam Chen, a Republican political strategist, said that Republicans believed that she was probably \u201cthe best candidate that they could field,\u201d but that \u201cin closed doors among Republicans \u2026 the general consensus early on has been she\u2019s not going to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they felt that she could protect their downballot way more than, say, Doug Mastriano could,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things where you put your best candidate in, you do the work and you put yourself in the position that if something breaks in your favor, you can win [but] they thought someone like a Doug Mastriano would have put them out of that contention altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n
The down-ballot races may be key this year as Democrats believe they are within striking distance of winning an electoral majority in the state Senate<\/a> for the first time since 1978. Such a shift in power in Harrisburg could give them the power to implement a laundry list of policies<\/a> including raising the minimum wage, legalizing recreational marijuana<\/a> and codifying access to reproductive health care.<\/p>\n However, Garrity is now trailing where Mastriano ended the race. While he lost by 15 percentage points in 2022, she is now behind by more than 20, according to every recent poll<\/a>, with gaps as high as 27 points.<\/p>\n If the goal was ultimately to help prop up downballot races, Borick said that hope has now \u201cdissipated.\u201d Borick attributes the Garrity campaign\u2019s gradual decline to a perfect storm of factors.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a really, really challenging environment for any Republican to run in \u2026 and she matched up with a well-funded, disciplined incumbent with a history of electoral success in Pennsylvania that is in the party that\u2019s riding the wave and not fighting the wave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n