Who's Safe? Who's Not? Breaking down the 2020 Pennsylvania House and Senate contests
In the House, only about a dozen districts could be considered “tossup” seats.
Those at the top of the list include the 151st Legislative District in Montgomery County, where Republican Rep. Todd Stephens’s margins of victory have been shrinking. His last win, in 2018, was by three percentage points, and Democrats now have a 2.5-point registration advantage there.
Others include the 144th and 168th legislative districts, also in the southeast part of the state. Republican Reps. Todd Polinchock and Chris Quinn have nine- and 10-point registration advantages, respectively, over Democrats. But each won by fewer than 600 votes in 2018.
Even more immediately, Democrats have their sights set on a special election on March 17 in the Bucks County district recently vacated by Rep. Gene DiGirolamo. The moderate Republican spent 25 years in the seat and won reelection by a healthy 13 points in 2018. But Democrats have a nearly 12-point voter registration advantage now, and Bucks County commissioners seats flipped to majority Democrat in 2019 for the first time in decades. Democrats are putting up candidates in two other GOP-leaning special elections on the same day.
Republicans, on the other hand, have their eyes on the Cambria County district represented by Democratic Rep. Frank Burns. The six-term lawmaker’s margins of victory have shrunk in an area trending red and where President Donald Trump won considerably in 2016. Democrats still have a 2-percentage-point registration advantage over Republicans.
Among the 16 or so seats opening up, only six are considered competitive.
All are now held by Republicans: Reps. Stephen Barrar, Tom Murt and Marcy Toepel in the Philadelphia suburbs; Reps. Justin Simmons and Marcia Hahn in the Lehigh Valley; and House Speaker Mike Turzai in suburban Pittsburgh.
Barrar’s and Simmons’ districts look like top Democratic targets because of their narrow wins in 2018. Murt won by 10 points in 2018 but Democrats now have a nearly seven-point registration advantage over Republicans there.
Turzai, the most powerful House lawmaker for the past five years, defeated his Democratic challenger by nine percentage points two years ago — the smallest margin of his 19-year career and far smaller than his 30-point win in 2016. Republicans still have a nine-point edge there, and the Democrat who ran last time has already re-launched her campaign.
Turzai’s departure also has the potential to affect the rest of his caucus members’ fates. As the most important face of the Republican House, he was their top fundraiser — directly donating more than $1.8 million to their campaign efforts in 2018.
The likelihood of the Democrats taking control of the Senate slipped in the fall when Sen. John Yudichak, of Luzerne County, unexpectedly switched his party affiliation from Democrat to independent and chose to caucus with Republicans. Instead of needing to win three seats in three competitive districts, the majority might end up being just out of reach for the Democrats.
“What looked like a very competitive situation just a few weeks ago just doesn’t look competitive at all,” said Republican strategist Charlie Gerow.
The most vulnerable Republicans, Killion and DiSanto, represent districts that are narrowly Republican in voter registration; they won in 2016 only by about three percentage points each. Laughlin, in Erie, won by seven percentage points but Democrats maintain a 17-point registration advantage, according to the latest data.
Democrats have a top-tier recruit in at least one of those districts. George Scott, a pastor and veteran who narrowly lost a race for the Harrisburg-based 10th Congressional District in 2018, is running against DiSanto. Gov. Tom Wolf, who said he will personally be involved in and donate to legislative candidates this year, started fundraising for Scott right after he jumped into the race.
“The Republicans know that George is a formidable opponent, and they will do everything they can to beat him,” Wolf wrote in a fundraising email earlier this month. “Any contribution will send a message that Democrats are energized and ready to flip the State Senate and pass policies that Pennsylvanians desperately need.”
The fourth seat Democrats need to win to break even in the Senate is held by Martin, in southern Lancaster County. It will be a stretch, observers believe. Republicans hold a seven percentage point voter-registration edge in the district, which includes deep blue Lancaster city.
In 2018, Democratic congressional candidate Jess King outperformed incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker in the district’s precincts by 88 votes. In the state Senate race this year, the Democrats are fielding a candidate with high name recognition in the area: three-term Lancaster County Commissioner Craig Lehman.
But it will take an ambitious campaign to recreate King’s monumental ground game from 2018 and recapture the enthusiasm she elicited.
Republicans, meanwhile, might target a pair of Democratic-held districts, including freshman Iovino’s. Her predecessor, former Sen. Guy Reschenthaler, a Republican, won by a whopping 21 points in 2016 before she won by four percentage points in the 2019 special election.
The other would be 14-year Democratic incumbent Sen. Andy Dinniman. The former Chester County commissioner won easily there even before the countywide offices made their historic shift to the Democrats in 2019.
“The Dinniman seat has been a thorn in the side of Republicans for a long time,” Gerow said. “Given the voting trends down there, it’s a tougher race than it otherwise would have been.”
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