Ap Decision Notes: What To Expect In Pennsylvania's State Legislative Special Elections
Tuesday's special elections will fill two vacancies in Pennsylvania's General Assembly. Democrats are defending a state House seat on friendly turf with control of the deadlocked chamber on the line, while Republicans look to maintain their comfortable advantage in the state Senate in a reliably GOP district.
In the state House, voters in District 35 in western Pennsylvania southeast of Pittsburgh will elect a replacement for Democratic state Rep. Matt Gergely, whose death in January left the parties tied at 101 seats each. The major-party nominees to succeed him are Democrat Dan Goughnour, who's a McKeesport school board member and a police officer, and Republican Chuck Davis, who's president of the White Oak Borough Council and a volunteer firefighter. Libertarian Adam Kitta is also on the ballot.
On the other side of the commonwealth in the state Senate race, three candidates are running to replace former Republican state Sen. Ryan Aument, who left his seat in December to work as state director in Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick's office. The nominees are Republican Josh Parsons, a Lancaster County commissioner Democrat James Andrew Malone, the mayor of East Petersburg and libertarian Zachary Moore.
Democratic candidates have a strong track record in the Allegheny County-based state House district. Gergely first won the seat in a 2023 special election with 75 of the vote and ran unopposed in 2024. Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris carried the district with about 58 of the vote in the 2024 presidential election, compared with about 42 for former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
Trump, who won the election and a second term in the White House, performed well in some parts of the district, receiving comfortable majorities in Liberty, Lincoln, Port Vue, South Versailles and White Oak, but those municipalities collectively made up less than a third of the district's total vote. The most competitive battlegrounds in the district were Versailles and West Homestead, both of which Harris carried narrowly. She won most of the district by huge margins.