PA Political Digest -- It's Debate Night in Philly, Spice Wars come to the Steel City & Shapiro goes after GOP State House seats
Sharp analysis of PA politics and campaigns writ large
Welcome to our Tuesday Mid-Week post here at PPD — I’m your guide, GOP political consultant Christopher Nicholas.
For you today, we have:
In our Indifference ‘24 segment, it’s Debate Night in America/Philly folks…and the Spice Wars come to the Steel City
Our Look Ahead continues our examination of PA’s media markets and today we look at #2, Pittsburgh
Did you know Gov. Josh Shapiro is endorsing PA State House candidates in an attempt to keep the lower house in Democratic control?
Indifference ‘24
The Democratic Party’s food tour across the Commonwealth continues.
Over the weekend, VP Kamala Harris, camped out since Thursday in the Steel City doing debate prep, took a break and went food shopping. More specifically, she went spice/herb shopping at a store that in the past had posted “All Republicans are racist” on their FB page. The owner admits it is part and parcel of their overall marketing strategy.
As the Washington Post wrote, “Following her Saturday stop at the Pittsburgh location of Penzeys Spices, the company has been thrust into the national spotlight. Penzeys is known by many of its fans for its owner’s unapologetic embrace of liberal policies and broadsides against Republicans, and over the weekend, supporters of former president Donald Trump began calling for a boycott and flooding the store’s Yelp page with negative reviews.”
The story went on to say that after they attacked Republicans as racist in 2022, the owner noted that 40,000 people left his email list in protest, but 30,000 joined — an interesting marketing strategy. And I thought french fries on the sandwich was the oddest Pgh food quirk.
You’d have to think that Team Harris knew about the store’s reputation as they planned and advanced her visit, etc. Either way, seems to have been an unforced error.
Readers may remember that last week we wrote about MN Gov. Tim Walz food shopping at a farmers market in Lancaster during a campaign swing through central PA. He bought desserts.
The Big Debate, the only agreed to debate so far between Harris and Donald Trump, is tonight (Tuesday) at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, as we previewed in Friday’s edition.
Given what happened in the Atlanta debate in June, there’s a low bar set for Harris’ performance tonight on ABC. Just survive. On the other hand, polls show, logically, that more voters need to know more about her and her views, as Trump has been on the national scene for many years.
Can Trump stay focused enough during the 90-minute tussle? Can Harris deftly manage to take credit for the successes of the Biden-Harris Adminstration while avoiding taking flak for its failures? Who comes across as more of a change-agent? Will Trump stalk her on stage as his did with Hillary Clinton in 2016’s 2nd debate in St. Louis?
As we noted in Friday’s post, the stage at the National Constitution Center is much smaller than is typical of such debates…so they will be much closer to each other physically.
Again, Harris has not debated like this since she squared off against Mike Pence in Salt Lake City in October 2020. Trump debated once this year, in Atlanta. According to media reports, these two have never met before.
Since this is the only debate that’s set, much of the media is portraying this as the only debate we’ll get. Perhaps. But views within a campaign about the advisability of additional debates can and do change based on their candidate’s performance in the initial debate. So let’s see what happens after tonight.
The one VP debate is set for Oct. 1 in NYC and CBS will broadcast that.
Look Ahead
In today’s Look Ahead we examine PA’s 2nd largest TV market: Pittsburgh, home of odd sandwiches, controversial spice shops…and the best (AFC) football team in the state.
The 13 counties there contain about 21.5% of the state’s voters, behind only the Philadelphia market. It is the 26th largest TV market in the country, down from 24 in 2010.
The region lost nearly 38,000 residents from 2020-23, according to Census Bureau figures. In fact, just 2 of the 13 counties showed any growth in that time frame: Butler and Washington.
Registration is 42/45/13% R/D/I in the market and it’s home to 1.62 million voters. Eight people there are registered members of the Whig Party.
As Wikipedia notes: America has enjoyed four Whig presidents: William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison were Whigs before switching to the Republican Party.*
The counties located within the Pittsburgh market, from most to least populous, are:
Allegheny Westmoreland Washington
Butler Beaver Fayette
Lawrence Indiana Armstrong
Venango Clarion Greene Forest
In terms of registration, every county in this market is Republican, except for Allegheny. It’s a big ‘but,’ as Allegheny accounts for nearly half the voters in the market. Overall 34% of voters there are considered rural, 43% suburban and the balance urban.
*The first and third of those Whig presidents, Harrison and Taylor, both died in office, and were succeeded by their vice presidents. Harrison served just a month in office, the shortest stint of any of our presidents.
Did you know
Did you know that Gov Josh Shapiro endorsed candidates in a dozen+ state house races earlier this week -– no surprise, they’re all Democrats. And half of them are Bucks County-based districts, according to a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Shapiro got 59% in Bucks County during his 2022 race for governor, above his 56.5% state-wide average.
Despite the veritable blizzard of Special Elections in the House this session, Democrats won and have held a 1-seat majority there.
So the GOP incumbents targeted there obviously survived Shapiro’s 2022 election onslaught, when he outspend the GOP nominee for governor by a 10:1 ration, $73 million to $7 million (in hard money).
But Democrats are thinking that this year — without Shapiro on the ticket — his endorsement could make a difference in a county that is normally very close in presidential races.
Biden took 51.6% of the vote in Bucks in 2020, a bit above his state-wide average of 50.1%.
For example, incumbent Republican State Rep. KC Tomlinson in HD-18 (Bensalem) won re-election in ’22 with 52.3% of the vote. Joe Biden won that district in 2020 as did Shapiro in ‘22. So will Shapiro’s endorsement of her Democratic opponent make a difference this year? Tomlinson also received about 52% of the vote in ‘20.
Pew Research’s new national poll, out yesterday, shows a tie at 49%-all in the presidential race. Donald Trump holds a sizeable lead on the economy and related issues, while Harris leads on “several personal traits and characteristics.”
In August this same survey was +1 Harris, so no big change.
No real advantage exists for either candidate on “mental sharpness,” issues, unlike when Biden was still in the race.
The poll shows Trump has support from 13% of Black voters and 30% of Hispanics. Interestingly, Trump is 52-46 with men while Harris is…52-46% with women. Most polls show Harris with a higher ballot score with female voters.
Pew interviewed more than 8,000 registered voters across the land, pulled from voters in their online panel. The issue many in the biz have with polls via online panel, including yours truly, is that they artificially deflate undecideds. As one GOP pollster told PPD, “All online surveys do that, and the results always shade to the Dems.”
The national polling out the past few days shows that Harris’ momentum has slowed, if not to a halt…then close to it. Again, all the usual caveats with national polls.
The new NYT/Sienna College poll shows a tie race here in the presidential race, again, and a 1-pt lead nationally for Donald Trump.
Hang tight everyone: CNN reported yesterday that PA has seen more than $150 million in campaign spending so far, with slightly more than half from Democratic candidates/groups.
Enjoy debate night in Philly!