The Scoop
Republicans like Vice President JD Vance dismissed Tuesday’s Democratic wins as a “couple of elections in blue states,” with no real political risk for the GOP.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro begs to differ.
Three liberal state Supreme Court justices won new 10-year terms by landslides in Shapiro’s swing state, a year after President Donald Trump’s victory there, after the governor lent himself and his war chest to the campaigns.
Trump-trending Pennsylvania counties like Erie and Luzerne also elected new Democratic leaders. Bucks County elected its first Democratic district attorney in 134 years.
And the president limited his involvement to a Truth Social post that urged a vote against the “woke” and “radical” justices. Shapiro is declaring a personal as well as partisan victory.“I went all-in, raised and invested a lot of money to support our candidates up and down the ballot,” Shapiro said in an interview on Wednesday. “I think they saw the way that the races seem to be headed, and how engaged I was, and they chose to pick a different fight.“Democrats had expected a bigger Republican investment in Pennsylvania after a PAC supported by the state’s wealthiest GOP donor bought early ads in the state Supreme Court race. But their “No in November” campaign got little support from national Republicans, and Shapiro’s Democrats outspent them by a 4-1 margin.
Know More
Shapiro is seeking a second term next year, but he, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, is universally seen as a likely 2028 presidential candidate. When state treasurer Stacy Garrity launched her GOP campaign for governor this summer, her chief strategist called it “the first ad of 2026 and 2028.”
When Kamala Harris didn’t pick him as her running mate, the Democratic rumor mill said that he was protecting himself, and his winning record, for a different election. (Shapiro dismissed that.)
Shapiro’s own campaign donated $250,000 to the state Democratic Party, and the governor helped shape the court campaign message: Reelect three justices who fought “big corporations” and would “stand up for all our freedoms.”
As in March, when a Democrat upset the GOP in a state Senate race, Shapiro recorded an eleventh-hour robocall for the judges. Democrats prepared for a high-profile Trump rally or endorsement in Pennsylvania that never came.
“We were operating from the view that if we didn’t do our job, Democratic turnout was going to be horrible, just because people didn’t know there was an election,” said Eugene DePasquale, who was elected as chair of the Pennsylvania Democrats in September, as the court campaign geared up.
DePasquale ran for attorney general last year and lost in the Trump wave, but Tuesday was a complete reversal of fortunes: Democrats overperformed in swing counties and places that had moved toward Republicans.
“I knew that we had really talented candidates running really localized elections around issues that mattered in their communities, and that voters are frustrated by Donald Trump,” said Shapiro.
After Tuesday, Democrats said that they identified a winning theme that worked for every candidate: how the president’s tariffs and spending decisions made life cost more. Affordability was often their response to questions about Zohran Mamdani in New York City, a socialist candidate that they didn’t want the entire party to be associated with.
Shapiro credited Mamdani with an “incredibly impressive campaign,” and saw the affordability “through line” in the party’s wins outside New York. Asked about the Democrats who called Mamdani an antisemite, Shapiro, who is Jewish, noted that he’d been critical of how the mayor-elect dealt with extremism, but said they’d cleared the air.
“Mamdani called me, and we had a very lengthy conversation, and I was very direct with him about how hurtful some of the words were that he used or that he allowed to be used around him,” said Shapiro.
“He explained to me his perspective, which I thought was helpful for me to hear, and on some things, we agreed to disagree,” the governor added. “But I thought it was a healthy dialogue, and I appreciate the fact that he reached out.”
Asked about conservative infighting over antisemitism — which picked up after the white supremacist Nick Fuentes sat for a friendly interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a move the Heritage Foundation’s leader briefly defended before reversing course — Shapiro said that he saw “antisemitism on both sides, but it’s clear that the right has a problem.”
“I don’t share a lot in common ideologically or on the issues with Sen. [Ted] Cruz,” Shapiro added, but Cruz “did the right thing by speaking out against Fuentes and Carlson and the Heritage Foundation and others.”
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who won his seat the night that Shapiro was elected governor, called the party’s victories outside Pennsylvania unsurprising; he had criticized fellow Democrats for calling Trump “fascist.” Shapiro said he hadn’t heard those comments.
“We need to call out the things [Trump is] doing that undermine our freedoms and our democracy, and do so in a way that can actually stop him from doing them, not just simply labeling the conduct,” Shapiro said. “Those labels tend to be a shortcut, and tend not to be all that effective. But under no circumstances should we be insulting our fellow Americans who make a different choice at the ballot box.”
David’s view
Every Democrat had something to brag about after Tuesday’s elections, but few were more invested than Shapiro or Newsom, whose redistricting ballot measure coasted to passage on Tuesday.
Democrats in competitive races got help from the likes of Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, former Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg, and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. Khanna pointedly campaigned with Mamdani as a “progressive capitalist” who wasn’t scared of democratic socialism.
Shapiro’s critics, including more left-wing, Israel-skeptical Democrats, would have gloated had he been defeated at home. He wasn’t.
Newsom got vengeance on Trump for his red-state gerrymanders, which Democratic voters will appreciate. But the Pennsylvania governor had a trickier assignment, in a state where his party’s voter registration advantage has shrunken every year.
What use was his popularity if Democrats couldn’t ride it down-ballot? He answered that question: Shapiro can now say he’s beaten Republicans in places where Trump’s appeal has near-mythical power.
Shapiro’s post-election media tour has kept him in the mix of Democrats who can speak for their party and the direction it needs to take. I was struck that he wanted a concord with Mamdani, after criticizing him so sharply this summer.
Democrats will be paying attention to how much party-building he can do in his state.
Oh, and his memoir is out in two months.
Room for Disagreement
John Brabender, Garrity’s strategist, called it convenient for the governor to focus on an off-year election instead of the 2024 results, and noted that he’s facing a far less Democratic electorate than he did three years ago; the party’s registration advantage had fallen by nearly 600,000.
“The truth of the matter is that Shapiro’s last opponent didn’t even make it on TV, and the case against Shapiro, including his economic failures, liberal California beliefs, and long list of corruption and coverups have never been told,” he said. “That is about to change!”
Notable
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In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Gillian McGoldrick looks at how Philadelphia Democrats bounced back and organized after a wretched 2024.
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In Politico, Jeremy B. White and Melanie Mason report that the California vote could be “rocket fuel” for a Newsom 2028 bid. “The campaign handed Newsom the opportunity to counter Trump and national Republicans with California’s Democratic might, building on years of practice.”
