Larry Ceisler Weighs In On 2024 Election Outcomes
With all eyes on Pennsylvania as the nation faces a political shake-up, Ceisler Media’s founder weighs in on key races and how candidates performed.
Presidential
As someone who grew up in Washington County, I realized that Biden’s win in 2020 was mostly due to his margin in smaller counties, and that Harris wouldn’t do as well in those counties as he did. This meant she would have had to run it up in the bigger areas, I didn’t think there were any extra votes to be found in the collar counties after the way they’ve turned out in recent years, so it was all going to come down to Philly.
Harris needed to bank an extra 100,000 votes in Philly over Biden’s numbers to win statewide, and to their credit they tried really hard. They had the most robust and sophisticated canvassing operation I’ve seen in the city, but it just didn’t work, they didn’t even match the Biden number.
The question becomes, “How did this happen?” And I think the answer is that the messaging simply didn’t land. I knocked on doors during this election, and I kept hearing things such as, “the Democratic party hasn’t done anything for me,” or, “I had it better under Donald Trump,” or, “I’m really struggling right now,” and I don’t think Harris had the right messaging on the economy. Even though a lot of economic indicators look great right now, a lot of average people are hurting, and she didn’t have an answer for that.
She also didn’t have an answer for how she would be different from Joe Biden. It’s hard to believe that the same team who prepared her so well for her debate, didn’t prepare her for how to answer the simple question of how she would differ from an historically unpopular incumbent president.
I think Harris was a good candidate who was put in an extremely difficult situation, but Democrats have a real challenge in that a significant part of the country just doesn’t relate to them. And I think if the Republicans had nominated a more mainstream candidate, they would have won even bigger.
The one thing I’m thankful for is that this is a clear victory, there is no ambiguity, and we won’t have a repeat of 2020. Democrats need to figure out a new path forward if they want to be competitive in Pennsylvania.
U.S. Senate
Unfortunately we live in a quasi-parliamentary system and that ticket splitting happens far less these days, and we’re seeing those effects down the ballot as well. Bob Casey appears to be in real trouble, and he has a long track record of winning statewide in Pennsylvania. But the McCormick campaign was able to spend enough to negate those advantages and it looks as though he may pull out a squeaker of a win there.
Congress
A similar dynamic is in play in Congressional races. Matt Cartwright and Susan Wild have both had a track record of winning tight races in tough districts, but this time the trickle-down from the top of the ticket caught up to them. Their races had been tightening for several cycles now, and I honestly think that having Gov. Josh Shapiro at the top of the ticket is probably what saved them last cycle because he had real coattails.
One other race to note is that it seems as though every cycle. Democrats get closer to picking off Scott Perry, and they came closer than ever with an ideal candidate in Janelle Stelson. She’s a moderate with universal name ID but they just couldn’t get over the top. That district is going to be one to watch for the next few cycles as it continues to trend Democratic.
State Legislature
The Senate is going to remain the same in terms of numbers, but one positive thing I see for Philly in this election is that it will be good to have someone from the city in the Senate Republican caucus. It’s been a long time since that’s been the case, now Philly’s voice will be heard in that caucus, which should benefit the city in the long run. The state House is too close to call, but it looks as though it will be pretty evenly split regardless of how the last couple of races shake out, and I think Shapiro will be able to work with the House regardless of which party is in charge.
Row Offices
Row offices are also heavily influenced by the top of the ticket with the exception of maybe Shapiro running for Attorney General in 2016. Eugene Depasquale simply got outspent in the attorney general race, so it’s not surprising to see that they couldn’t escape the top of ticket effects. One race that I’ll be interested to see the final numbers on is treasurer. I don’t expect Stacy Garrity to outperform Trump statewide but she has a reputation for running a professional office and could lead the row office ticket.
Larry Ceisler is founder of Ceisler Media & Issue Advocacy
