As we end the year and the 2022 election cycle, it is important that we look back at the most important lessons and takeaways. The next election is never too far away, and 2022 can teach us a lot of what success looks like for the Republican Party here in Southeast Pennsylvania in 2023.
First, let’s look at the results here in Bucks County. After years of failing to beat our Republican state representatives and senators at the ballot box, Democrats took it upon themselves to try and beat us through the redistricting process. The maps they produced were a blatant partisan power grab.
Despite the best efforts of Harrisburg Democrats, Bucks County elected five Republican state representatives and two Republican state senators this year. This represents a critical voting bloc in a Pennsylvania House which, as I write this, is under Democratic control by just a single seat. Maintaining this presence for our party in the House is just one of the keys to judging our success in 2022.
This success was due in no small part thanks to the next topic I’d like to discuss, which is candidate quality. This election proved that after all this time, candidate quality is still an absolutely crucial factor in a campaign’s success. Here in Bucks County, we were proud to have a wonderful slate of candidates up and down the ballot, who worked hard and fought every day to represent our community and its values.
When the new Pennsylvania House and Senate and U.S. Congress are sworn in, Bucks County will be home to the majority of Republican state representatives and senators in our region, and the only Republican congressman to represent the Delaware Valley. This is thanks in part to the quality of men and women who go out and make their case to their neighbors on behalf of themselves and the party.
The final important lesson we must take away from 2022, and one that I am hopeful we as a party are quickly learning, is the clear need to make better use of early voting. While I would like to see Act 77 repealed as much as the next person, we must recognize that early voting is not going away any time soon.
For too long, too many in our party refused to make use of early voting, whether in person at your local Board of Elections office, or by mail. Democrats start with hundreds of thousands of votes in the bank, and we spend just one day playing catch up. Here in Bucks County, we started an early vote program back in 2021, and have seen great success. It’s time to expand that across the Commonwealth.
As we all prepare for our county and local elections in 2023, we cannot soon forget the lessons from both our successes and failures in 2022. We know what we must do to win, and we are fired up and ready to go in the new year.
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