{"id":5692,"date":"2025-10-17T11:44:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/5692\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T11:44:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:44:17","slug":"pennsylvania-supreme-court-election-puts-democrats-and-republicans-on-alert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/5692\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Supreme Court election puts Democrats and Republicans on alert"},"content":{"rendered":"

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) \u2014 There are no $1 million giveaways<\/a> to voters, cheesehead hats or even candidate debates. Elon Musk<\/a> is nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n

Yet the stakes in the Pennsylvania election this fall are very much the same<\/a> as they were in Wisconsin last spring: partisan control of the highest court in a crucial presidential swing state.<\/p>\n

In November, Pennsylvania voters will decide whether three state Supreme Court justices \u2014 all Democrats \u2014 should keep their seats on a court that has been at the center of pivotal fights over voting rights<\/a>, redistricting<\/a> and elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Spending is nowhere near the $100 million<\/a> spent in Wisconsin \u2014 a record amount for a state supreme court race, much of it fueled by groups aligned with billionaires Musk, who briefly worked in President Donald Trump\u2019s Republican administration, and George Soros, a donor to liberal causes.<\/p>\n

Even so, both parties in Pennsylvania are pouring in money for campaign flyers, digital and TV ads and get-out-the-vote efforts.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s Supreme Court has a 5-2 Democratic majority, so an across-the-board loss for Democrats on Nov. 4 could leave the court in a partisan 2-2 stalemate for two years, including through next year\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Motivating voters for a \u2018retention election\u2019<\/p>\n

A big difference from Wisconsin\u2019s Supreme Court race earlier this year is that Pennsylvania\u2019s doesn\u2019t feature candidates running against each other. Instead, it\u2019s what is called a retention election, in which voters are asked to vote \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d on whether to give the current justices another term. The incumbents aren\u2019t identified by party affiliation.<\/p>\n

The traditionally under-the-radar election, with a late-emerging organized campaign by Republicans to defeat the justices, has Democrats worried. Educating their voters and getting them to the polls during an election with major races are top priorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a full campaign,\u201d state Democratic Party Chairman Eugene DePasquale said. \u201cThe bigger challenge on that isn\u2019t so much getting people to vote \u2018yes.\u2019 It\u2019s just even getting some people to understand what a retention vote is, because this is really the first time it\u2019s ever been heavily contested.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three justices \u2014 Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty and David Wecht \u2014 are backed by the Democratic Party in their bids for retention. Term are 10 years.<\/p>\n

Should all three lose, their seats would become vacant in January and leave the court deadlocked with a 2-2 partisan split until voters fill the open seats in 2027 \u2014 unless Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a> and the state Senate can agree on temporary fill-in appointees. <\/p>\n

Complicating it is that the Senate is controlled by Republicans, who might see an advantage in letting the court remain deadlocked.<\/p>\n

That means the court might be unable to settle cases involving voting and election laws through the 2026 midterm elections, when the governor\u2019s office<\/a> and a handful of contested congressional seats<\/a> will be on the ballot.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the court has made major decisions around voting and elections, necessitated in part by a politically divided<\/a> and often stalemated state government. <\/p>\n

The justices in 2018 threw out<\/a> a GOP-drawn map of Pennsylvania\u2019s congressional districts as unconstitutionally gerrymandered and, four years later, again picked the boundaries<\/a> after a stalemate in government.<\/p>\n

The court also turned away GOP challenges<\/a> to Pennsylvania\u2019s expansive vote-by-mail law, which became a focal point of Republican efforts to overturn Trump\u2019s loss<\/a> to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Republican justices dissented.<\/p>\n

Spending is exceeding any previous retention race<\/p>\n

With a month to go before Election Day, spending has exceeded any previous judicial retention election in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

In 2017, two justices spent just shy of $1 million combined and had no organized opposition during an election in which turnout was less than 20%. Counting money-raising that has been reported or verbally committed, spending in this year\u2019s election is on pace to exceed $10 million.<\/p>\n

While not all spending or money sources have been disclosed publicly, big donors on the Democrats\u2019 side include trial lawyers, labor unions and Planned Parenthood, which announced a $600,000 mail campaign on Monday. Spending also is coming from a group associated with billionaire Jeffrey Yass<\/a>, Pennsylvania\u2019s wealthiest person, for the Republicans\u2019 campaign against retention.<\/p>\n

The justices have been campaigning around the state, mostly in front of friendly audiences, and lining up endorsements from Planned Parenthood and organized labor.<\/p>\n

Democrats and their allies were first on the airwaves with a TV ad and are trying to hammer home the justices\u2019 support for abortion rights<\/a>, voting rights and labor unions in an ad campaign that advances them as defenders of the law against powerful people and corporations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe protected access to abortion and your right to vote, even when the powerful came after it,\u201d the justices say in a new TV ad. \u201cAll Pennsylvanians deserve freedom and fairness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican messages target Democratic voters<\/p>\n

With mail ballots set to go out soon, Republicans are beginning to spend on an effort to convince voters that 10 years on the state\u2019s highest court is enough.<\/p>\n

Many of their ads are targeting registered Democratic voters with anti-establishment messages that use language typically associated with progressives who oppose Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fall you can defend democracy and force an election for a new Supreme Court,\u201d says one TV ad that ran most heavily in Philadelphia, a Democratic stronghold.<\/p>\n

Fliers landing in the mailboxes of registered Democrats carry similar messages. In yet another twist, one flier accuses the justices of drawing the heavily criticized congressional districts that they actually threw out in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A group that typically acts as a conduit for campaign contributions from Yass, who runs the Wall Street trading firm Susquehanna International Group and has an estimated net worth of $65 billion, is sponsoring TV ads and fliers.<\/p>\n

The group, Commonwealth Partners, didn\u2019t respond to inquiries about the spending.<\/p>\n

Another billionaire looms large in the election<\/p>\n

Yass-funded groups have spent millions of dollars each of the last four years in Pennsylvania elections to help Republican candidates, including more than $10 million each in 2022\u2019s GOP gubernatorial primary<\/a> and 2024\u2019s election for attorney general. <\/p>\n

Beyond Pennsylvania, Yass is one of the biggest contributors<\/a> to national conservative causes and, through his company, is an investor in Trump\u2019s social media company. Yass\u2019 firm also is a major investor in TikTok owner ByteDance<\/a>, and this year, Trump\u2019s super political action committee, Maga Inc., reported that Yass gave it $16 million.<\/p>\n

The campaign also has drawn national party interest.<\/p>\n

The Democratic National Committee pledged $500,000 and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee gave $100,000 to an allied group.<\/p>\n

A page on the Republican National Committee\u2019s \u201cSwamp the Vote\u201d website is devoted to urging Republicans to vote \u201cno,\u201d and the Republican State Leadership Committee reported spending about $500,000 on digital ads and text messages.<\/p>\n

It said defeating the three justices \u201cwould spur a seismic momentum shift in Pennsylvania that would create an opening for more conservative policy victories in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Borrowing from Democrats\u2019 strategy in Wisconsin, where Musk personally campaigned in the closing days of the April race, DNC Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement that \u201cMAGA billionaires\u201d are trying to buy the nation\u2019s courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stakes couldn\u2019t be higher in these judicial retention races, especially in the run-up to critical races across the Commonwealth in 2026 and winning back the White House in 2028,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

This story has been corrected to show that the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee gave $100,000; it didn\u2019t pledge $500,000.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Marc Levy on X at https:\/\/x.com\/timelywriter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) \u2014 There are no $1 million giveaways to voters, cheesehead hats or even candidate debates.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5022,46,5026,34,902,5147,38,5148,5152,1578,33,5153,40,28,30,29,5149,50,1579,44,4715,5151,5150,5154],"class_list":["post-5692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-christine-donohue","tag-courts","tag-david-wecht","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-elon-musk","tag-general-news","tag-george-soros","tag-jeffrey-yass","tag-joe-biden","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-ken-martin","tag-pa-state-wire","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennsylvania-state-government","tag-politics","tag-u-s-democratic-party","tag-u-s-news","tag-u-s-republican-party","tag-wi-state-wire","tag-wisconsin","tag-wisconsin-state-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5692","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=5692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}