April 24, 2024 • 26 mins
The 2024 Democratic Primary has come and gone, and the voters have spoken. But what did they say? Uncover the seismic shifts within the Democratic Party following the 2024 primary elections with me as we dissect the victories, the protests, and what they spell for the future. President Biden clinches a decisive win, yet the 7% protest vote for Dean Phillips speaks volumes about internal party dynamics as we march towards the general election. We're peeling back the layers on Bob Casey's unchallenged Senate nomination and the upcoming tussle with Dave McCormick, alongside a deep dive into Eugene DePasquale's triumph in a hotly contested Attorney General race. The influence of name recognition, regional backing, and candidate diversity are all on the table as we analyze the ingredients for success in these critical seats.
The State Treasurer's race has set social media ablaze, spurring a discourse that's both heated and revealing. Join us as we spotlight candidate Bizarro's strategic campaign maneuvers, wielding his political roles and relationships to harness institutional support. The potency of endorsements and the impact of a historical vote on abortion rights insurance coverage in 2013 are examined under our microscope, revealing how these factors intertwine with public opinion and campaign results. It's not just about the headline candidates; we're interpreting the broader trends and voter sentiments shaping the Democratic strategy for the upcoming electoral showdown.
Prepare to be surprised as we tease a deep analysis of Philadelphia's electoral landscape in our next episode. Despite a short break from the mic, rest assured that a treasure trove of insight lies ahead, with hard-hitting statistics and angles poised to challenge the status quo. We're gearing up to arm you with a formidable understanding of the City of Brotherly Love's political heartbeat, ensuring you won't want to miss a beat of our compelling narrative. So mark your calendars, and join us for an eye-opening journey into Philadelphia's political surprises.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, the 2024 Democratic primary election has
come and gone and the votershave spoken.
The question is, what exactlydid they say?
Welcome to the KeystoneReckoning podcast.
I'm your host, jesse White.
It is Wednesday, april 24th2024, and we are going to take a
look today at the aftermath andthe results of the 2024
(00:20):
Democratic primary, which washeld yesterday.
Some surprises, somenon-surprises.
24 Democratic primary, whichwas held yesterday Some
surprises, some non-surprises.
Let's take a look at thedifferent races and the results,
starting at the top of theticket, president Biden,
obviously the winner on thepresidential nomination, with
93% of the vote, just under 7%voting for Dean Phillips.
That was obviously a kind ofwell-known protest vote by
(00:45):
numerous people around the state.
A lot of the progressive groupswere kind of advocating for
that.
That's just to make a statement.
You know the odds of thosefolks actually not coming home
to vote for Biden in the fall isvery minimal, but there was a
point to be made and they madeit.
By comparison, bob Caseyreceived 100% of the vote, so
(01:06):
you know.
The question then is howseriously is that taken?
I think that what it willrequire is for the National
Party and the Biden campaign togive pause and say wait a minute
, why did we get that undervote?
What does it mean?
What can we do to address itgoing forward?
That's a topic for another day.
Today we're just doing kind ofan overview, but it definitely
(01:29):
is something the party will takenotice of and what they do with
it is really kind of up in theair and up for debate.
So, obviously, us Senate BobCasey, by comparison, as I
mentioned, unopposed 100% of thevote that's about as safe as it
gets.
Obviously, as I mentioned,unopposed 100% of the vote
that's about as safe as it gets.
Obviously he'll face offagainst Dave McCormick in the
(01:52):
fall.
There's a lot of issues withMcCormick that are starting to
come to light, including thatNew York Times article about him
growing up on a farm.
Again, we're going to talkabout that another day.
But that race was really notmuch to talk about, probably the
most boring race on the ballot,and that's just by virtue of
what.
It was Okay.
So let's get into the statewiderow offices, because this is
where things start to getinteresting and we're going to
(02:12):
talk about each individual race.
But then there's a trend that Ireally want to talk about that
I think is really importantbecause to me the overall
results, while obviously veryimportant, are also tea leaves
to be able to find trends,patterns, indicators that can
either confirm or dispelconventional wisdom.
(02:33):
And I want to do a little bitof that because I think that's
the part that gets glossed over,as everybody's kind of
recovering from the primary andgearing up for the general.
But there are important lessonsto be taken from those and I
want to talk about them.
Ok, so attorney general's race,eugene DiPasquale, a former
colleague of mine in the statehouse, a former two-term auditor
general, won the state with35.7% of the vote.
(02:56):
Next was Jack Stolmeister,coming in with a little over 20%
, coming in with 20, a littleover 20 percent, joe Kahn with
16 percent, keir Bradford Graywith nearly 15 percent and Jared
Solomon with 13 percent.
We're going to talk about thatrace again in a different
episode in more depth, becausethere's a big, deep dive there.
(03:16):
But the takeaway from there Ithink and I have someone who
watched that race To me this wasEugene DiPasquale won, not that
he's not qualified.
There was no endorsed candidatein the race from the state party
and the narrative was kind ofacross the board.
We have five good candidates.
You can't go wrong with any ofthem.
That seemed to be kind of theconsensus that you saw on
(03:37):
Twitter and on social media isthat everybody was free to pick
who they wanted.
There was no real bad candidatein the bunch.
Everybody was free to pick whothey wanted.
There was no real bad candidatein the bunch and as a result of
that, with it being kind of alevel playing field, it really
opened up an opportunity forEugene because he had the name
recognition and really what thisshowed and there was one other
race that I'm going to talkabout that highlighted this is
(03:59):
that voters went with the namethey knew.
Voters went with the name theyknew.
You know Eugene, two timesstatewide office winner, eight
years of earned media coverageas an auditor general no
scandals.
You know he did run in PA 10for Congress in 2020, by all
accounts, underperformed in thatrace.
(04:19):
I would argue that that largelyhad to do with a lot of the
people advising him and some ofthe really horrible ads that
they put together kind of reallytone deaf ads to run against
Scott Perry.
Point remains, overall, wellknown and you know when we'll
look at the breakdowns.
But you know, in the westernpart of the state, really you
(04:40):
know anything, west ofHarrisburg.
He just dominated because hewas known out there and all four
of the other candidates wereall from the east.
So it set up that, you know thatgeographical divide where it
really there was a situationwhere Eugene just didn't.
All he had to do was not screwup.
He didn't screw up, right, heran a competent, somewhat quiet
(05:04):
campaign and what you saw waseverybody else or not everybody
else, but a lot of the othercandidates you know, saw what
was happening.
They tried to focus in on thatand tried to kind of, you know,
narrow the narrative became,well, it's a two man race
between me and GD Pasquale as away to get to raise money and to
get votes, and it kind of fellflat across the board.
I think that really, of all thepeople in that race you know
(05:28):
here, bradford Gray being theonly woman on the ballot, that's
one where I think she couldhave and probably should have
done better.
And I think that when we take alook at some of these campaign
finance reports, which obviouslyaren't all out yet, that's
going to really tell the tale,because I'm very interested and
we're going to talk about youknow how much not only how much
(05:51):
did the candidates raise likewe're all obsessed with that,
but how did they spend it?
And I think that might be oneof those races we're going to
look at it and say, wow, thatwas probably there were better
approaches in terms of bothstrategy and how to spend your
dollars, and then also what youspent your dollars on.
Again, we'll get into that moredeeply.
But Eugene wins the attorneygeneral's race.
(06:12):
Auditor general race.
Malcolm Kenyatta, state rep,ran for US Senate in 2022
against Sean Fetterman and ConorLamb in that race.
Malcolm Kenyatta, state rep,ran for US Senate in 2022
against Sean Fetterman and ConorLamb in that race and didn't do
very well at all.
Even in his home of Philly wasthe endorsed candidate this time
around he beat Lehigh Countyauditor or a Lehigh County
(06:33):
controller, mark Pinsley, ratherhandily 64 percent to 36
percent%.
Not a whole lot to say there.
That was a race that you know.
Of all the statewides, itreally fell under the radar.
It was, I think, definitely theone with the least amount of
juice and again, I think we'llbe able to have a conversation
about resource allocation andhow that impacted things.
(06:56):
But let's talk about to me, thebiggest.
I don't want to say upset, butI think the race that had
everybody surprised this morningand that was the state
treasurer's race between staterep Ryan Bizarro from Erie and
who was again a sitting staterep he was the endorsed
Democratic candidate and ErinMcClellan from Allegheny County.
(07:17):
She ran for Allegheny Countyexecutive last year.
She was also a formercongressional candidate.
So in an instance whereKenyatta, as the endorsed
Democrat for Auditor General,won with 64 percent of the vote,
bizarro fell 20 points belowthat and lost to McClellan 54 to
(07:37):
46.
That's a thumping right.
That is a thumping in astatewide race against an
endorsed candidate whereMcClelland didn't it wasn't like
she like dramatically outspenthim or did anything.
It wasn't one of thosescenarios where he didn't have
the resources.
And there are a lot of reasonsfor that and I want to touch on
a couple briefly.
Because of all the races thatwere out there among the
statewides, this is the one that, if you were on social media,
(08:00):
if you were on Twitter, this wasthe one where I had everybody
kind of chirping back and forthat each other.
There was a lot being saidabout this race.
A lot of people really dug inand felt very strongly about it
and you know in a way that, forexample, like in the auditor
general's race and even theattorney general's to a lesser
degree, I think the auditorgeneral's race people put on the
pay no mind list.
(08:20):
I think the attorney general'srace, everybody may have had
their favorites but there wereno strong feelings about this
candidate is so much better thanthe other candidate.
I think everybody kind of tooka wait and see approach and in a
five candidate field that makessense and also people like to
back winners.
There was no clear winner there.
I mean, you could have made anargument where any one of them
(08:42):
could have been more competitive.
So I think everybody was kindof keeping their power dry.
The Treasures race wasn't that?
For several reasons, and this iswhat I really want to talk
about.
So first of all, I think one ofthe reasons that everybody
expected Bizarro to do well orto honestly to win was that he
(09:02):
had all of the institutionalsupport he had all of you know
as not only just the partyendorsement, but he went out and
got endorsements up one sideand down the other and he had an
impressive list of endorsementsto show.
So let's talk about that asconventional wisdom Number one
endorsements.
In of themselves.
They're great.
They are not votes, they arenot.
And a lot of organizations.
(09:22):
You know, when I used to getendorsements as a candidate or
as a state rep, running forreelection or even working for
other candidates, theendorsement was great.
But my next question is yeah,but now what?
What does it come with?
And I don't mean that purelytransactionally, but obviously
you're hoping it comes with adonation to be able to get that
(09:44):
word out there.
And then also, how are yougoing to communicate that
endorsement to your members?
That's a really important pieceof this, because if they don't
tell their members that you'rethe endorsed candidate, then
what's the point?
Right?
So there's that.
So Bizarro had all theendorsements.
He also had the, you know, andhere's how he got, in my opinion
(10:07):
, here's how he got the stateparty endorsement Is.
So, as a sitting state rep, hewas able to leverage that in a
good, in a smart way.
Okay, he was the democraticpolicy chair.
For those of you don't know, thepolicy committee is a kind of a
(10:28):
, a kind of a special kind ofcommittee within the caucuses.
So they don't actually likevote, they don't like move.
It's not a committee that likeneeds to move legislation.
It's basically a traveling roadshow for the caucus to go all
over the state and put on publichearings to raise awareness
about issues, to learn aboutthings.
It's not a bad thing.
(10:49):
I want to be clear, and when Iwas a rep I used the policy
committee.
We had several hearings in mydistrict and it could either be
you would go to them as a memberand say, hey, this is something
happening in my district, Iwant to raise awareness of it.
Can we get a policy committeehearing in here?
And then you would have, youknow, several colleagues you
know would come in and theywould sit there and you would
bring your witnesses not yourwitnesses, you would bring in
(11:11):
your people to testify and giveinformation as a way to raise
awareness.
You'd invite the media, thewhole bit.
It's not a bad thing.
It's a little bit of a dog andpony show, but it's an okay dog
and pony show because it couldactually accomplish something
and it's you know, it's like aone day thing.
You do it in a governmentbuilding, whatever.
I did some on a lot of thefracking and environmental
things.
I know we did some on propertytax reassessment, which is, by
(11:33):
the way, another issue we'regoing to really talk about in
the coming weeks here, afterthings settle down from the
primary, because it's a hottopic again and so they're
useful.
So as the chair of thatcommittee he then got to go
everywhere all over the stateand make connections everywhere
all over the state.
So when he was there becausetypically what would happen is
(11:54):
the members that are on thepolicy committee were by and
large members that were in likereally safe districts or members
that really like expenseaccounts, and you know the joke
would be I'd be sitting on thefloor.
I never did this part of it.
I more than enough going onback home.
But there would be members whowould be like who's our captain
tonight?
And that meant who was going tobe the person, the lobbyist or
(12:16):
whoever buying dinner, right,who's the captain?
And it was a lot of the samepeople, kind of the lifers, the
people who had been there for along time and they enjoyed going
out and traveling and you knowthey did their job.
But they also liked getting theper diems and staying places
and going to dinner and, youknow, kind of seeing the
Commonwealth.
(12:38):
And so in doing that Bizarre wasable to make a lot of
connections, one of the otherthings that was helpful for him.
He was the caucus administratorfor a while.
The caucus administrator,within the Democratic caucus, is
the person who literallydecides where your office is and
where your parking space is,and staff and stuff like that.
So as a member, especially as arank and file member, that's
someone you needed to have onyour good side because they
could make your life a littleeasier, a little harder, inside
(13:01):
the Capitol.
And so he was able to make alot of connections and he was
able to leverage a lot of thoseconnections and I'm quite
certain I wasn't there, but Iknow this is what happened is he
went to all of his colleaguesall over the state and said hey,
you know I'm running fortreasurer, can I have your
endorsement?
And they were like sure, whynot?
You're a colleague, why not?
(13:21):
I don't really know the otherperson?
And then he was able to takethat leverage into state
committee endorsing and thoughthe was off to the races.
The problem was or severalproblems is one there was.
There were a lot of people thatdid not really, that just
didn't like him, quite frankly,and I could see it, you could
(13:46):
really see it start to developover social media and I've had
my own interactions but I'mgoing to leave those out of this
.
That's not really relevant tothis.
But I'm going to leave thoseout of this.
That's not really relevant tothis, but it certainly doesn't
(14:07):
dispel what I kind of suspectedand saw happening, where there
were people that were likeposting screenshots of how he
responded to people, veryconfrontational even with
McClelland all through.
There's a lot about likecampaign finance reports and
like there were a lot of stuffback and forth and the
legitimacy of all of it can bedebated.
(14:29):
There was also he had an ethicscomplaint that was filed against
him.
That was exposed by.
It was brought out by theRepublicans about and this is
bizarre and I still don't knowhow this happened.
His campaign social media waslinked to his official
Commonwealth like website, whicheven when I was there 10 years
ago, that was an absolute, couldhave never happened.
(14:51):
I don't know how that happened.
I don't know.
But the ethics complaint wasfiled because basically, that's
using state resources forpolitical purposes.
It's no joke.
People have gone to jail forthat.
I'm not saying that wouldhappen here, but it's serious
right, especially if someone'sgoing to press it.
The ethics complaint was filedand then the ethics commission
(15:11):
came back and said well, we'renot allowed to take action
within 60 days of an election,so we can't take action on it
now, which you could debate themerits of that.
I get why people don't want toweaponize that process, but as
of today, it is no longer 60days after the election.
Had he been the nominee, youcould be damn sure that that
(15:31):
would have moved forward.
It might still move forward, Idon't know, but that was going
to be a problem because that'ssomething we have gone.
I think we finally gotten pastthat whole bonus gate, that
whole, you know that whole thing.
You don't need that right now.
The other thing that hurt himwas there was an amendment that
he voted for in 2013.
(15:51):
I remember I was there actuallyvoted against it.
That involved providinginsurance coverage for abortions
in certain circumstances.
The details are, you know, kindof not really the point, but it
was.
It was construed as ananti-choice vote and in this
election cycle obviously, whereobviously choice is the, you
know, one of the biggest issues,you know globally or generally,
(16:15):
you know, across the board,that was problematic.
You know he was very muchbacked by the like the Catholic
Conference, and there was.
You know there were some votesthat were considered
conservative, votes that cameback to haunt him, and anytime
you have somebody that has heldoffice for he's been in for like
10 years you know you've got avoting record eight miles long
that can be used against youProcedural votes.
(16:37):
But you know and then there'sthe whole of this is how many
per diems you got over the years, and as policy committee chair
I'm sure you had a ton of them.
The end of the day, my gutinstinct is because the state
party did virtually nothing tosupport this ticket I think that
had to do with the most moneyraised by far was by the
attorney general candidatesthat's what happens and because
(16:58):
there was no endorsed attorneygeneral candidate, that left a
void of where there'd be moneygoing in to support a slate.
The treasurer and honor generalcandidates just didn't raise
enough to do anything.
So there were like no slatecards, there was no digital push
, it was nothing.
Because the state party doesn'thave the money and so without
(17:20):
that kind of leadership, thatparty endorsement didn't mean
nearly as much as it could have,nearly as much as it would have
, like you know, in the general,obviously.
So the other part of it.
I think, gut instinct, no wayto corroborate this.
No one's going to say it outloud.
I think there was a real concernin that race, especially that
if Bizarro had won, you wouldhave a ticket of all men, all
(17:45):
white men, with the exception ofMalcolm Kenyatta, who's black.
That would have, you know, in arace where reproductive rights
is going to be such an importantissue and you know, for those
of you that don't know,democratic voters are 60-40
women in Pennsylvania.
They make up a disproportionateamount of the Democratic vote
you absolutely need Democraticwomen to come out to win
(18:07):
Pennsylvania this fall.
Not having a woman on theticket talking about those
issues, I think to many peoplewould have come off as
mansplaining and insincere, notto say that men can't have good,
solid, strong, valid opinionsabout reproductive rights.
Of course they can, but I don'tthink it would have had the
(18:29):
same resonance.
Now there are people that willsay well, what does the state
treasurer have to do withabortion?
Well, what does the statetreasurer have to do with
abortion?
And there are things actuallythat they do in terms of, like
you know, ethical investment andsocial investing and divesting,
and that's something foranother day.
But I think there's also asymbolism right To have a woman
running for and holdingstatewide office.
And, by the way, the Republican, the incumbent treasurer, is a
(18:53):
woman, stacey Garrity.
So to have a Democratic womanin office, that can be that also
symbolic figure, I think has alot of merit, I think it's
important.
So I think voters saw that and Ithink voters also were like I'm
voting for the woman.
You know, I think in a lot ofinstances, all things being
equal, voters, democratic votersare inclined to vote for the
(19:14):
woman if they feel that they areboth competent candidates.
So I think there was all ofthose factors came into play.
I think also you had a factthat Bizarro is from Erie,
obviously much smaller,mcclellan's for Allegheny County
, much bigger, and when you goto vote it has your county next
to your name and you know, youknow, and Bizarro won Erie
(19:36):
overwhelmingly, mcclellan wonAllegheny overwhelmingly.
Obviously that tilts heavily inher favor.
So McClellan was up all nightand you know it, never really,
she was never really in dangerof losing that race.
They called it relatively earlyactually.
So that's one where I thinkthere are very specific reasons.
But it was interesting becausethis morning everybody and I've
(19:59):
become very annoyed, quitefrankly, with pundits and
reporters and everybody that aretrying to do this like drive by
analysis, right when they don'treally know what it's like.
They don't know what they'retalking about, they just haven't
done the research to likereally understand.
And then they make these likesweeping statements and
(20:21):
sometimes when they do it beforean election, it can be very
hurt or very harmful becausethey basically using their,
their position and they'resetting conventional wisdom that
in many cases is just notaccurate and then people go with
it.
But again, story for anotherday.
But this morning there was alot of oh, that was the shock of
the day.
Shock of the day.
No one saw that coming.
But if you were really watchingthe race, I don't think anybody
(20:42):
predicted you know the factthat she won by nearly 100,000
votes.
But the writing was on the walland the pieces were there and I
think for those of us that werereally watching that race, it
was not a shock.
The margin might have been asurprise, but the outcome was
not a total shock.
So, from all of this and the,there are a couple of other
(21:07):
races.
I want to mention congressionalraces.
Summer Lee won her primary, uhpatel handily.
That's also an interestingdynamic.
That's one of the moreinteresting districts and
dynamics in the country.
Um, that merits its own episode.
But that was.
You could see that coming right.
But it was definitely a veryspirited and kind of nasty
(21:29):
outside money.
Um, you know a lot of outsidemoney from republicans were
coming into it.
You know the lot of outsidemoney from Republicans were
coming into it.
You know a lot of things happenin there.
Um, the other one was in mydistrict of PA 10, which we've
talked about before.
Janelle Steltsen ended upwinning uh with and I want to
pull it, so I have it exactlyright she won a six way primary
(21:53):
by with 43% of the vote, almost44%.
That was similar to the EugeneDiPasquale race.
I'm saying it right now.
That was almost exclusively onName ID.
She was well known for being ananchor, a TV news anchor, but
there were real questions thatare not going to go away.
(22:13):
Former registered Republicandoesn't live in the district.
From what I understand, she hasno intentions.
She's going to basically buy aplace in the district but really
not live there, which she's youknow, and she did.
I'm sorry, she's a phony, I'mjust going to say it.
She's a phony and, by the way,I'm going to keep a running
(22:34):
tally of how many fundraisingsolicitations I get from her,
because I got two before 9 30last night, in both an email and
a text.
I'm going to bet that I get 500solicitations for money from
her between last night andnovember.
That's my prediction.
Five, well, maybe not 500, 250for and I have not and will not
(22:56):
give her a dime.
I have a lot of problems withthat.
And that was one of those raceswhere she put out a polling memo
that was internal, didn't giveanything.
Behind it said she was in thelead, she did raise money, but
everybody's like, oh, she's thefront runner.
And then it became conventionalwisdom and it just rolled.
I didn't like that at all.
(23:17):
Um, I think, quite frankly,scott perry's gonna mop the
floor with her.
Um, and I we're gonna bewatching that race very
carefully because it's here inmy backyard.
Um, but I think her and eugenewere situations where, uh, you
know, name id was everything.
That's all that was.
And but here's the thing.
You know what?
I'm going to save this for thenext episode because it's such
(23:38):
an important.
It's such an important thingthat I want to do a little more
research, to get a little morenumbers, and I want to be able
to really really talk about it,and we're already running a
little long today, so I'm goingto hold off, but tune in
tomorrow and I'll give you ahint.
It has to do with Philadelphiaand you're going to want to hear
(24:02):
this because it's going tosurprise you.
What I'm going to have to say.
This is in terms of numbers andresults and breaking up some
conventional wisdom.
So come back tomorrow.
I know we were a little lighton some of the episodes, mainly
because we were I was soinvolved in, so involved in
being involved in some of theseraces and the day-to-day that
comes with that.
But now obviously we have somemore time.
There's going to be a lot tobreak down, a lot of deep dives.
(24:24):
I'm looking forward to itbecause I have a lot to say in
case you can't tell.
So come back tomorrow we willhave our next episode.
It's going to be a good one.
Well, the 2024 Democratic primary election has
come and gone and the votershave spoken.
The question is, what exactlydid they say?
Welcome to the KeystoneReckoning podcast.
I'm your host, jesse White.
It is Wednesday, april 24th2024, and we are going to take a
look today at the aftermath andthe results of the 2024
(00:20):
Democratic primary, which washeld yesterday.
Some surprises, somenon-surprises.
24 Democratic primary, whichwas held yesterday Some
surprises, some non-surprises.
Let's take a look at thedifferent races and the results,
starting at the top of theticket, president Biden,
obviously the winner on thepresidential nomination, with
93% of the vote, just under 7%voting for Dean Phillips.
That was obviously a kind ofwell-known protest vote by
(00:45):
numerous people around the state.
A lot of the progressive groupswere kind of advocating for
that.
That's just to make a statement.
You know the odds of thosefolks actually not coming home
to vote for Biden in the fall isvery minimal, but there was a
point to be made and they madeit.
By comparison, bob Caseyreceived 100% of the vote, so
(01:06):
you know.
The question then is howseriously is that taken?
I think that what it willrequire is for the National
Party and the Biden campaign togive pause and say wait a minute
, why did we get that undervote?
What does it mean?
What can we do to address itgoing forward?
That's a topic for another day.
Today we're just doing kind ofan overview, but it definitely
(01:29):
is something the party will takenotice of and what they do with
it is really kind of up in theair and up for debate.
So, obviously, us Senate BobCasey, by comparison, as I
mentioned, unopposed 100% of thevote that's about as safe as it
gets.
Obviously, as I mentioned,unopposed 100% of the vote
that's about as safe as it gets.
Obviously he'll face offagainst Dave McCormick in the
(01:52):
fall.
There's a lot of issues withMcCormick that are starting to
come to light, including thatNew York Times article about him
growing up on a farm.
Again, we're going to talkabout that another day.
But that race was really notmuch to talk about, probably the
most boring race on the ballot,and that's just by virtue of
what.
It was Okay.
So let's get into the statewiderow offices, because this is
where things start to getinteresting and we're going to
(02:12):
talk about each individual race.
But then there's a trend that Ireally want to talk about that
I think is really importantbecause to me the overall
results, while obviously veryimportant, are also tea leaves
to be able to find trends,patterns, indicators that can
either confirm or dispelconventional wisdom.
(02:33):
And I want to do a little bitof that because I think that's
the part that gets glossed over,as everybody's kind of
recovering from the primary andgearing up for the general.
But there are important lessonsto be taken from those and I
want to talk about them.
Ok, so attorney general's race,eugene DiPasquale, a former
colleague of mine in the statehouse, a former two-term auditor
general, won the state with35.7% of the vote.
(02:56):
Next was Jack Stolmeister,coming in with a little over 20%
, coming in with 20, a littleover 20 percent, joe Kahn with
16 percent, keir Bradford Graywith nearly 15 percent and Jared
Solomon with 13 percent.
We're going to talk about thatrace again in a different
episode in more depth, becausethere's a big, deep dive there.
(03:16):
But the takeaway from there Ithink and I have someone who
watched that race To me this wasEugene DiPasquale won, not that
he's not qualified.
There was no endorsed candidatein the race from the state party
and the narrative was kind ofacross the board.
We have five good candidates.
You can't go wrong with any ofthem.
That seemed to be kind of theconsensus that you saw on
(03:37):
Twitter and on social media isthat everybody was free to pick
who they wanted.
There was no real bad candidatein the bunch.
Everybody was free to pick whothey wanted.
There was no real bad candidatein the bunch and as a result of
that, with it being kind of alevel playing field, it really
opened up an opportunity forEugene because he had the name
recognition and really what thisshowed and there was one other
race that I'm going to talkabout that highlighted this is
(03:59):
that voters went with the namethey knew.
Voters went with the name theyknew.
You know Eugene, two timesstatewide office winner, eight
years of earned media coverageas an auditor general no
scandals.
You know he did run in PA 10for Congress in 2020, by all
accounts, underperformed in thatrace.
(04:19):
I would argue that that largelyhad to do with a lot of the
people advising him and some ofthe really horrible ads that
they put together kind of reallytone deaf ads to run against
Scott Perry.
Point remains, overall, wellknown and you know when we'll
look at the breakdowns.
But you know, in the westernpart of the state, really you
(04:40):
know anything, west ofHarrisburg.
He just dominated because hewas known out there and all four
of the other candidates wereall from the east.
So it set up that, you know thatgeographical divide where it
really there was a situationwhere Eugene just didn't.
All he had to do was not screwup.
He didn't screw up, right, heran a competent, somewhat quiet
(05:04):
campaign and what you saw waseverybody else or not everybody
else, but a lot of the othercandidates you know, saw what
was happening.
They tried to focus in on thatand tried to kind of, you know,
narrow the narrative became,well, it's a two man race
between me and GD Pasquale as away to get to raise money and to
get votes, and it kind of fellflat across the board.
I think that really, of all thepeople in that race you know
(05:28):
here, bradford Gray being theonly woman on the ballot, that's
one where I think she couldhave and probably should have
done better.
And I think that when we take alook at some of these campaign
finance reports, which obviouslyaren't all out yet, that's
going to really tell the tale,because I'm very interested and
we're going to talk about youknow how much not only how much
(05:51):
did the candidates raise likewe're all obsessed with that,
but how did they spend it?
And I think that might be oneof those races we're going to
look at it and say, wow, thatwas probably there were better
approaches in terms of bothstrategy and how to spend your
dollars, and then also what youspent your dollars on.
Again, we'll get into that moredeeply.
But Eugene wins the attorneygeneral's race.
(06:12):
Auditor general race.
Malcolm Kenyatta, state rep,ran for US Senate in 2022
against Sean Fetterman and ConorLamb in that race.
Malcolm Kenyatta, state rep,ran for US Senate in 2022
against Sean Fetterman and ConorLamb in that race and didn't do
very well at all.
Even in his home of Philly wasthe endorsed candidate this time
around he beat Lehigh Countyauditor or a Lehigh County
(06:33):
controller, mark Pinsley, ratherhandily 64 percent to 36
percent%.
Not a whole lot to say there.
That was a race that you know.
Of all the statewides, itreally fell under the radar.
It was, I think, definitely theone with the least amount of
juice and again, I think we'llbe able to have a conversation
about resource allocation andhow that impacted things.
(06:56):
But let's talk about to me, thebiggest.
I don't want to say upset, butI think the race that had
everybody surprised this morningand that was the state
treasurer's race between staterep Ryan Bizarro from Erie and
who was again a sitting staterep he was the endorsed
Democratic candidate and ErinMcClellan from Allegheny County.
(07:17):
She ran for Allegheny Countyexecutive last year.
She was also a formercongressional candidate.
So in an instance whereKenyatta, as the endorsed
Democrat for Auditor General,won with 64 percent of the vote,
bizarro fell 20 points belowthat and lost to McClellan 54 to
(07:37):
46.
That's a thumping right.
That is a thumping in astatewide race against an
endorsed candidate whereMcClelland didn't it wasn't like
she like dramatically outspenthim or did anything.
It wasn't one of thosescenarios where he didn't have
the resources.
And there are a lot of reasonsfor that and I want to touch on
a couple briefly.
Because of all the races thatwere out there among the
statewides, this is the one that, if you were on social media,
(08:00):
if you were on Twitter, this wasthe one where I had everybody
kind of chirping back and forthat each other.
There was a lot being saidabout this race.
A lot of people really dug inand felt very strongly about it
and you know in a way that, forexample, like in the auditor
general's race and even theattorney general's to a lesser
degree, I think the auditorgeneral's race people put on the
pay no mind list.
(08:20):
I think the attorney general'srace, everybody may have had
their favorites but there wereno strong feelings about this
candidate is so much better thanthe other candidate.
I think everybody kind of tooka wait and see approach and in a
five candidate field that makessense and also people like to
back winners.
There was no clear winner there.
I mean, you could have made anargument where any one of them
(08:42):
could have been more competitive.
So I think everybody was kindof keeping their power dry.
The Treasures race wasn't that?
For several reasons, and this iswhat I really want to talk
about.
So first of all, I think one ofthe reasons that everybody
expected Bizarro to do well orto honestly to win was that he
(09:02):
had all of the institutionalsupport he had all of you know
as not only just the partyendorsement, but he went out and
got endorsements up one sideand down the other and he had an
impressive list of endorsementsto show.
So let's talk about that asconventional wisdom Number one
endorsements.
In of themselves.
They're great.
They are not votes, they arenot.
And a lot of organizations.
(09:22):
You know, when I used to getendorsements as a candidate or
as a state rep, running forreelection or even working for
other candidates, theendorsement was great.
But my next question is yeah,but now what?
What does it come with?
And I don't mean that purelytransactionally, but obviously
you're hoping it comes with adonation to be able to get that
(09:44):
word out there.
And then also, how are yougoing to communicate that
endorsement to your members?
That's a really important pieceof this, because if they don't
tell their members that you'rethe endorsed candidate, then
what's the point?
Right?
So there's that.
So Bizarro had all theendorsements.
He also had the, you know, andhere's how he got, in my opinion
(10:07):
, here's how he got the stateparty endorsement Is.
So, as a sitting state rep, hewas able to leverage that in a
good, in a smart way.
Okay, he was the democraticpolicy chair.
For those of you don't know, thepolicy committee is a kind of a
(10:28):
, a kind of a special kind ofcommittee within the caucuses.
So they don't actually likevote, they don't like move.
It's not a committee that likeneeds to move legislation.
It's basically a traveling roadshow for the caucus to go all
over the state and put on publichearings to raise awareness
about issues, to learn aboutthings.
It's not a bad thing.
(10:49):
I want to be clear, and when Iwas a rep I used the policy
committee.
We had several hearings in mydistrict and it could either be
you would go to them as a memberand say, hey, this is something
happening in my district, Iwant to raise awareness of it.
Can we get a policy committeehearing in here?
And then you would have, youknow, several colleagues you
know would come in and theywould sit there and you would
bring your witnesses not yourwitnesses, you would bring in
(11:11):
your people to testify and giveinformation as a way to raise
awareness.
You'd invite the media, thewhole bit.
It's not a bad thing.
It's a little bit of a dog andpony show, but it's an okay dog
and pony show because it couldactually accomplish something
and it's you know, it's like aone day thing.
You do it in a governmentbuilding, whatever.
I did some on a lot of thefracking and environmental
things.
I know we did some on propertytax reassessment, which is, by
(11:33):
the way, another issue we'regoing to really talk about in
the coming weeks here, afterthings settle down from the
primary, because it's a hottopic again and so they're
useful.
So as the chair of thatcommittee he then got to go
everywhere all over the stateand make connections everywhere
all over the state.
So when he was there becausetypically what would happen is
(11:54):
the members that are on thepolicy committee were by and
large members that were in likereally safe districts or members
that really like expenseaccounts, and you know the joke
would be I'd be sitting on thefloor.
I never did this part of it.
I more than enough going onback home.
But there would be members whowould be like who's our captain
tonight?
And that meant who was going tobe the person, the lobbyist or
(12:16):
whoever buying dinner, right,who's the captain?
And it was a lot of the samepeople, kind of the lifers, the
people who had been there for along time and they enjoyed going
out and traveling and you knowthey did their job.
But they also liked getting theper diems and staying places
and going to dinner and, youknow, kind of seeing the
Commonwealth.
(12:38):
And so in doing that Bizarre wasable to make a lot of
connections, one of the otherthings that was helpful for him.
He was the caucus administratorfor a while.
The caucus administrator,within the Democratic caucus, is
the person who literallydecides where your office is and
where your parking space is,and staff and stuff like that.
So as a member, especially as arank and file member, that's
someone you needed to have onyour good side because they
could make your life a littleeasier, a little harder, inside
(13:01):
the Capitol.
And so he was able to make alot of connections and he was
able to leverage a lot of thoseconnections and I'm quite
certain I wasn't there, but Iknow this is what happened is he
went to all of his colleaguesall over the state and said hey,
you know I'm running fortreasurer, can I have your
endorsement?
And they were like sure, whynot?
You're a colleague, why not?
(13:21):
I don't really know the otherperson?
And then he was able to takethat leverage into state
committee endorsing and thoughthe was off to the races.
The problem was or severalproblems is one there was.
There were a lot of people thatdid not really, that just
didn't like him, quite frankly,and I could see it, you could
(13:46):
really see it start to developover social media and I've had
my own interactions but I'mgoing to leave those out of this
.
That's not really relevant tothis.
But I'm going to leave thoseout of this.
That's not really relevant tothis, but it certainly doesn't
(14:07):
dispel what I kind of suspectedand saw happening, where there
were people that were likeposting screenshots of how he
responded to people, veryconfrontational even with
McClelland all through.
There's a lot about likecampaign finance reports and
like there were a lot of stuffback and forth and the
legitimacy of all of it can bedebated.
(14:29):
There was also he had an ethicscomplaint that was filed against
him.
That was exposed by.
It was brought out by theRepublicans about and this is
bizarre and I still don't knowhow this happened.
His campaign social media waslinked to his official
Commonwealth like website, whicheven when I was there 10 years
ago, that was an absolute, couldhave never happened.
(14:51):
I don't know how that happened.
I don't know.
But the ethics complaint wasfiled because basically, that's
using state resources forpolitical purposes.
It's no joke.
People have gone to jail forthat.
I'm not saying that wouldhappen here, but it's serious
right, especially if someone'sgoing to press it.
The ethics complaint was filedand then the ethics commission
(15:11):
came back and said well, we'renot allowed to take action
within 60 days of an election,so we can't take action on it
now, which you could debate themerits of that.
I get why people don't want toweaponize that process, but as
of today, it is no longer 60days after the election.
Had he been the nominee, youcould be damn sure that that
(15:31):
would have moved forward.
It might still move forward, Idon't know, but that was going
to be a problem because that'ssomething we have gone.
I think we finally gotten pastthat whole bonus gate, that
whole, you know that whole thing.
You don't need that right now.
The other thing that hurt himwas there was an amendment that
he voted for in 2013.
(15:51):
I remember I was there actuallyvoted against it.
That involved providinginsurance coverage for abortions
in certain circumstances.
The details are, you know, kindof not really the point, but it
was.
It was construed as ananti-choice vote and in this
election cycle obviously, whereobviously choice is the, you
know, one of the biggest issues,you know globally or generally,
(16:15):
you know, across the board,that was problematic.
You know he was very muchbacked by the like the Catholic
Conference, and there was.
You know there were some votesthat were considered
conservative, votes that cameback to haunt him, and anytime
you have somebody that has heldoffice for he's been in for like
10 years you know you've got avoting record eight miles long
that can be used against youProcedural votes.
(16:37):
But you know and then there'sthe whole of this is how many
per diems you got over the years, and as policy committee chair
I'm sure you had a ton of them.
The end of the day, my gutinstinct is because the state
party did virtually nothing tosupport this ticket I think that
had to do with the most moneyraised by far was by the
attorney general candidatesthat's what happens and because
(16:58):
there was no endorsed attorneygeneral candidate, that left a
void of where there'd be moneygoing in to support a slate.
The treasurer and honor generalcandidates just didn't raise
enough to do anything.
So there were like no slatecards, there was no digital push
, it was nothing.
Because the state party doesn'thave the money and so without
(17:20):
that kind of leadership, thatparty endorsement didn't mean
nearly as much as it could have,nearly as much as it would have
, like you know, in the general,obviously.
So the other part of it.
I think, gut instinct, no wayto corroborate this.
No one's going to say it outloud.
I think there was a real concernin that race, especially that
if Bizarro had won, you wouldhave a ticket of all men, all
(17:45):
white men, with the exception ofMalcolm Kenyatta, who's black.
That would have, you know, in arace where reproductive rights
is going to be such an importantissue and you know, for those
of you that don't know,democratic voters are 60-40
women in Pennsylvania.
They make up a disproportionateamount of the Democratic vote
you absolutely need Democraticwomen to come out to win
(18:07):
Pennsylvania this fall.
Not having a woman on theticket talking about those
issues, I think to many peoplewould have come off as
mansplaining and insincere, notto say that men can't have good,
solid, strong, valid opinionsabout reproductive rights.
Of course they can, but I don'tthink it would have had the
(18:29):
same resonance.
Now there are people that willsay well, what does the state
treasurer have to do withabortion?
Well, what does the statetreasurer have to do with
abortion?
And there are things actuallythat they do in terms of, like
you know, ethical investment andsocial investing and divesting,
and that's something foranother day.
But I think there's also asymbolism right To have a woman
running for and holdingstatewide office.
And, by the way, the Republican, the incumbent treasurer, is a
(18:53):
woman, stacey Garrity.
So to have a Democratic womanin office, that can be that also
symbolic figure, I think has alot of merit, I think it's
important.
So I think voters saw that and Ithink voters also were like I'm
voting for the woman.
You know, I think in a lot ofinstances, all things being
equal, voters, democratic votersare inclined to vote for the
(19:14):
woman if they feel that they areboth competent candidates.
So I think there was all ofthose factors came into play.
I think also you had a factthat Bizarro is from Erie,
obviously much smaller,mcclellan's for Allegheny County
, much bigger, and when you goto vote it has your county next
to your name and you know, youknow, and Bizarro won Erie
(19:36):
overwhelmingly, mcclellan wonAllegheny overwhelmingly.
Obviously that tilts heavily inher favor.
So McClellan was up all nightand you know it, never really,
she was never really in dangerof losing that race.
They called it relatively earlyactually.
So that's one where I thinkthere are very specific reasons.
But it was interesting becausethis morning everybody and I've
(19:59):
become very annoyed, quitefrankly, with pundits and
reporters and everybody that aretrying to do this like drive by
analysis, right when they don'treally know what it's like.
They don't know what they'retalking about, they just haven't
done the research to likereally understand.
And then they make these likesweeping statements and
(20:21):
sometimes when they do it beforean election, it can be very
hurt or very harmful becausethey basically using their,
their position and they'resetting conventional wisdom that
in many cases is just notaccurate and then people go with
it.
But again, story for anotherday.
But this morning there was alot of oh, that was the shock of
the day.
Shock of the day.
No one saw that coming.
But if you were really watchingthe race, I don't think anybody
(20:42):
predicted you know the factthat she won by nearly 100,000
votes.
But the writing was on the walland the pieces were there and I
think for those of us that werereally watching that race, it
was not a shock.
The margin might have been asurprise, but the outcome was
not a total shock.
So, from all of this and the,there are a couple of other
(21:07):
races.
I want to mention congressionalraces.
Summer Lee won her primary, uhpatel handily.
That's also an interestingdynamic.
That's one of the moreinteresting districts and
dynamics in the country.
Um, that merits its own episode.
But that was.
You could see that coming right.
But it was definitely a veryspirited and kind of nasty
(21:29):
outside money.
Um, you know a lot of outsidemoney from republicans were
coming into it.
You know the lot of outsidemoney from Republicans were
coming into it.
You know a lot of things happenin there.
Um, the other one was in mydistrict of PA 10, which we've
talked about before.
Janelle Steltsen ended upwinning uh with and I want to
pull it, so I have it exactlyright she won a six way primary
(21:53):
by with 43% of the vote, almost44%.
That was similar to the EugeneDiPasquale race.
I'm saying it right now.
That was almost exclusively onName ID.
She was well known for being ananchor, a TV news anchor, but
there were real questions thatare not going to go away.
(22:13):
Former registered Republicandoesn't live in the district.
From what I understand, she hasno intentions.
She's going to basically buy aplace in the district but really
not live there, which she's youknow, and she did.
I'm sorry, she's a phony, I'mjust going to say it.
She's a phony and, by the way,I'm going to keep a running
(22:34):
tally of how many fundraisingsolicitations I get from her,
because I got two before 9 30last night, in both an email and
a text.
I'm going to bet that I get 500solicitations for money from
her between last night andnovember.
That's my prediction.
Five, well, maybe not 500, 250for and I have not and will not
(22:56):
give her a dime.
I have a lot of problems withthat.
And that was one of those raceswhere she put out a polling memo
that was internal, didn't giveanything.
Behind it said she was in thelead, she did raise money, but
everybody's like, oh, she's thefront runner.
And then it became conventionalwisdom and it just rolled.
I didn't like that at all.
(23:17):
Um, I think, quite frankly,scott perry's gonna mop the
floor with her.
Um, and I we're gonna bewatching that race very
carefully because it's here inmy backyard.
Um, but I think her and eugenewere situations where, uh, you
know, name id was everything.
That's all that was.
And but here's the thing.
You know what?
I'm going to save this for thenext episode because it's such
(23:38):
an important.
It's such an important thingthat I want to do a little more
research, to get a little morenumbers, and I want to be able
to really really talk about it,and we're already running a
little long today, so I'm goingto hold off, but tune in
tomorrow and I'll give you ahint.
It has to do with Philadelphiaand you're going to want to hear
(24:02):
this because it's going tosurprise you.
What I'm going to have to say.
This is in terms of numbers andresults and breaking up some
conventional wisdom.
So come back tomorrow.
I know we were a little lighton some of the episodes, mainly
because we were I was soinvolved in, so involved in
being involved in some of theseraces and the day-to-day that
comes with that.
But now obviously we have somemore time.
There's going to be a lot tobreak down, a lot of deep dives.
(24:24):
I'm looking forward to itbecause I have a lot to say in
case you can't tell.
So come back tomorrow we willhave our next episode.
It's going to be a good one.
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