PA Political Digest -- Dems differ on residency, PA had at-large House members? + Dem $ maven does 5QW
Welcome to our Friday End of Week post...
Welcome to PPD — I’m your guide, veteran GOP political consultant Christopher Nicholas. Thanks to those of you Liking and Sharing PPD — appreciate it.
It’s our Friday End of the Week post. For you today:
Did you Notice? how Democratic campaigns view residency differently now depending on the candidate/race
5 Questions With…Democratic fundraising maven Aubrey Montgomery joins us today
This Week in PA welcomes State Rep. Mike Sturla, Democrat of Lancaster City.
Did you notice?
Did you notice how PA Democrats are coming down on different sides of the residency issue?
You probably remember the great lengths they went to to use it as a cudgel against 2022 GOP Senate nominee Mehmet Oz.
Our senior senator, Bob Casey, Jr., unleashed a negative TV ad on his GOP opponent, Dave McCormick on the residency issue. The ad states that McCormick really lives in CT and hasn’t voted here, citing stats from 2022.
Interestingly, McCormick — who grew up in PA and came back to the state to run an Internet 1.0 firm in Pittsburgh — did vote in Allegheny County in 2022, ‘23 and Primary ‘24, as did his wife.
Meanwhile, Democrats in central PA are pooh-poohing the residency issue in the 10th Congressional District. The Democratic nominee there, former TV broadcaster Janelle Stelson, doesn’t live in the 10th and has said she won’t move into the district from neighboring Lancaster County unless voters there choose her over GOP incumbent Scott Perry. Members of the House are only required to live in the state they are running in, not necessarily the actual district.*
But in a Patriot-News story yesterday, Cumberland County Democratic Chair Matt Roan said of Stelson’s residency, “with all the other considerations in this race, this hardly bubbles to the surface.” Stelson has stated since she has lived in the 10th District many years earlier in her life, the fact that she doesn’t live there now is immaterial.
Doesn’t it seem like PA Dems are trying to have it both ways on the residency issue? Of course, they’re allowed to try…
According to Dems, it’s Bad for McCormick, who grew up here and graduated high school here, lives here and votes here, but OK for Stelson who grew up in Alaska and won’t move into the 10th unless voters first elect her — and who won’t even be able to vote for herself in November.
And it is interesting to see Casey open this line of attack on McCormick in mid-June, relatively early. This supplants Casey’s ad on computer chips, which to me was a real dud of a spot. This ad, at this time, could also be a signal from Team Casey to all the Democrat outside groups and SuperPACs that it’s now time to attack McCormick on this issue — let’s see what happens in the next 7-10 days.
Casey has always reminded me of a 1950’s guy walking down the hill every morning from his house to the plant, carrying his black lunch pail.
*In the 1890 Census, PA picked up 2 additional House seats, which were elected at-large until 1902 because there was no desire to conduct redistricting. One of those at-large members was attorney Galusha A. Grow, of Susquehanna County. He was elected the regular way in the 1850’s, in a district, initially as a Democrat though he later switched to the Republican Party over slavery. Radical Republican Grow served as House Speaker during the beginning of the Civil War but lost re-election in 1862.
The interregnum (a PPD fave word) between Grow’s two stints of service in the House, 1863 to 1894, is thought to be the longest in history. Down to just 17 now, at the turn of the 20th Century PA was home to a much higher percentage of the nation’s population, and sported 36! congressional seats.
5 Questions With…
Today we’re chatting with Democratic fundraising maven, Aubrey Montgomery, who founded her Democratic fundraising firm, Rittenhouse Political Partners, in 2013. Before that she served as Finance Director for the PA Democratic Party, and led fundraising for the Host Committee for the 2016 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia, where she is based.
TWIP
This Week in PA (TWIP), the only state-wide political show on PA politics, talks with State Rep. Mike Sturla, Democrat from Lancaster City on the show that airs Sunday.
I’ve served as the Republican analyst on the show since its inception in 2017.
Sturla talked about the new K-12 education funding voted out by the House that’s now in the Senate. This set of state funding dollars, unlike the ones before them, are going to make a big difference, he asserted.
Later, Democrat analyst Danielle Gross and I debated whether Philly gets special treatment and extra funds from the state, more so than the other 66 counties. You can figure out which side of that never-ending argument we each took.
We also chatted about Sen. John Fetterman’s recent traffic accident and the revelations that he’s been cited multiple times for such issues. All of next week’s show, FYI, will be an interview with Fetterman.
Watch TWIP Sundays across the state:
Phila. Phl17 1:30pm
Pittsburgh KDKA+ Ch. 19 Noon
Harrisburg ABC27News 10am (also 7pm Sat.)
Scranton WBRE Ch. 28 11am
Johnstown WTAJ Ch. 10 6:30am
Erie JET-TV Ch. 24 10am
Errata
Happy Belated 100th Birthday to 41, George H.W. Bush, born 100 years ago Wednesday in Milton, Ma., to Prescott and Dorothy Bush. When he successfully ran for Congress in a Houston-based district in 1966, he secured a seat on the Ways and Means Committee, the first freshman to do so since 1904.
His longtime friend and collaborator, campaign manager and cabinet member, Jim Baker, wrote an Op-ed this week for the WSJ, titled, The George Bush Century: The 41st president’s life set an example for a divided country.
“As I watch the calamity that American politics has become, I yearn for the brand of wise, courageous and humble leadership that George H.W. Bush embodied,” Baker wrote.
Fyi, the recent-ish towering biography of Baker, The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III, by the husband-wife team of Peter Baker & Susan Glasser, is a worthwhile read.
In last week’s 5QW, Chris Cillizza predicted the U.S. House and Senate could swap party control this November; and if it did, it would be the first time that ever happened. Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, part of UVA’s Center for Politics, confirmed to PPD that it would be the first time since at least the dawn of the modern era (post Civil War). If the GOP took control of the Senate in November, that would put them in the driver’s seat when it came to confirming Cabinet officials, etc. in the next Administration.
Enjoy your weekend.