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Let’s face it: It’s tough to talk about such concepts as “voter enthusiasm” after a primary in which fewer than 23% of Allegheny County residents cast a ballot. After years in which voters saw contested primaries for marquee contests for U.S. Senate and governor, the only statewide fight in the May 19 primary was about … which Republican would be nominated for lieutenant governor.
But a lack of widespread enthusiasm doesn’t mean there’s nothing for people to feel happy about. Because sifting through the results, one can see a few groups who have something to celebrate.
1. Democrats, generally.
Granted, the signs weren’t as obvious as they have been in, say, recent special elections around the country. But the results Tuesday suggest that even in a low-wattage election, Democrats are more energized than the GOP.
Start with the gubernatorial contest between Gov. Josh Shapiro and his Republican rival, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity. Both ran uncontested in their primaries, in a state closely divided between Democratic and Republican voters. Even so, Shapiro drew nearly twice as many votes — 1.1 million to just under 640,000 — as Garrity.
Allegheny County saw similar trends in downballot races. In the state House 44th District race, Democrat Hadley Haas is guaranteed a rematch of her 2024 run against Republican incumbent Valerie Gaydos. But Haas drew slightly more votes from Democrats this time than she did in that presidential-year primary — 5,864 compared to 5,718. Gaydos turned out far fewer Republicans: 3,424 versus 4,731 two years ago.
As far as I can tell, among the candidates who ran unopposed in both the 2024 and 2026 primaries, Haas is the only one to improve on her performance. (That’s a potential warning sign for Gaydos, who won comfortably in 2024 but may not have the same national political tailwinds behind her this time.) But generally speaking, while there were falloffs in enthusiasm from 2024 for candidates in both parties, the drops were much less significant for Democrats.
2. The Republican establishment.
This is a rough time for leadership in both parties, and Republicans especially have spurned longtime leaders across the country, such as Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie and U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
But no such upset took place in the 46th state Senate District south of Pittsburgh, where Republican state Sen. Camera Bartolotta brushed off a challenge from Al Buchtan. (She also got to see the thumping of a political nemesis: State Rep. Bud Cook lost his 50th House District by nearly 10 points.)
Republicans also got the gubernatorial ticket they wanted when attorney Jason Richey, who chairs Allegheny County’s chapter of the Republican Party, became Garrity’s lieutenant governor running mate by easily turning aside a challenge from idiosyncratic challenger John Ventre.
Richey, a wrestler in college, seems ready to go to the mat. He already has a stump speech that, among other things, decries Shapiro as too focused on mounting a 2028 presidential run.
In case there’s any doubt Democrats will respond in kind, on Thursday they launched a website that accuses Garrity of being too focused on the White House — by putting “loyalty to Trump over Pennsylvanians.”
Richey dismissed the relevance of such attacks when I spoke to him Tuesday evening.
“This election is about Josh Shapiro,” he said.
Still, I couldn’t help asking Richey whether the GOP ticket would benefit from having Trump campaign on its behalf.
“I’m sure he’s going to be here because there are four Congressional races” that Republicans must win in Pennsylvania, he said. “Stacy and I are gonna take all the help we can get.”
Democrats likely won’t begrudge it if they do.
3. Left-leaning activists
A lot has been said about Brittany Bloam’s win in the 45th state House District west and southwest of Pittsburgh. Much of it has concerned a campaign mailer sent by Bloam’s Democratic rival, Pat Catena, that seemed to criticize transgender athletes.
The mailer has prompted calls for Catena to be stripped of his role as president of Allegheny County Council. But arguably its impact on the race has been overstated — in part because until the mailer dropped, few outlets other than WESA had talked about the race at all.
But this wasn’t the first time Catena struggled to straddle the gap between what many think the 45th District is — a bastion of old-school, moderate-to-conservative voters — and where the broader Democratic Party has been headed.
Catena previously had to distance himself from the support of a group that opposes abortion rights, which had backed him for nearly a decade. While he didn’t seek its recommendation this year, he got it anyway, based on their longstanding acquaintance.
But focusing on Catena’s missteps risks ignoring Bloam’s campaign, which even some Catena voters said impressed them.
“She put on a very strong campaign,” said Cindy Morrow, who attended Catena’s election-night win.
The mailer “was big because her supporters made it big,” Morrow added. But some Catena supporters said Bloam’s mailers were a factor, too, in part by appealing to the desire to protect residents from Trump administration policies.
“After 2024, we’ve seen this narrative that we need to move more to the center,” said Ashley Comans, the political director of the national progressive Working Families Party. The group backed Bloam’s efforts, amplifying her emphasis on issues such as the need for affordable childcare, the importance of reproductive rights, and concerns about how the Trump administration is conducting its immigration policy.
The results Tuesday, Comans said, are “a clear example of the shift that is happening in places like HD45, too.”
Of course, the real test — in this race and others — will come in November, when Bloam will face Republican James Julius. Catena, after all, ran a star-crossed campaign, and successful challengers often benefit from supporters with all kinds of agendas, both personal and political. And in a low-turnout primary, fired-up activists can have an even greater impact.
But that, ironically, can be a source of enthusiasm, too.
