Scott Presler, the GOP voting registration activist who helped flip several Pennsylvania county voter rolls from Democratic to Republican majority–ultimately helping elect President-elect Donald Trump–now has a new target: the state Supreme Court.
Sometimes known as the ‘Pied Piper of GOP voter registration,’ Presler is campaigning to get MAGA voters to vote against retaining three Democratic state Supreme Court justices: Christine Donohue, David N. Wecht, and Kevin M. Dougherty. Voters will decide whether to keep them on the bench in 2025.
Dougherty, a member of a Philadelphia political dynasty, is the brother of disgraced labor leader Johnny “Doc” Dougherty and the father of newly elected state Rep. Sean Dougherty (D-Philadelphia).
And it’s not just that they’re Democrats, Presler told DVJournal. Presler, who moved from Virginia to western Pennsylvania to help elect Trump, said the votes of these three jurists made real differences in people’s lives.
And not in a good way.
In 2020, the Democratic majority court voted to uphold former Gov. Tom Wolf’s pandemic lockdowns, he said. That resulted in the people voting for a referendum in 2021 to curb a governor’s emergency powers.
That same year, the court voted to allow mail-in ballots not received until three days after the election to be counted, Presler said. The law now requires ballots to arrive by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
He called those “awful decisions.”
Presler has rehired 23 people who worked for his nonprofit, Early Vote Action, during the 2024 election. They will now work to convince voters not to retain the Democratic justices. Billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump supporter, gave Early Vote Action $1 million in August.
“In recent history, there has only been one Supreme Court Justice [Russell M. Nigro] to lose a retention vote, and that was way back after the whole pay raise hullabaloo (in 2005),” said Republican political consultant Christopher Nicholas. “If those three are not retained by voters in the fall, then their terms would end at the end of 2025, and then the governor would have to appoint three replacements to serve until the next regularly scheduled judicial election, which would be 2027. Of course, the Senate would have to confirm those appointments.”
Nicholas said that Wecht, Donohue and Dougherty have until early January to tell the secretary of state whether they want to stand for retention.
“And so my message is, if Pennsylvanians want a different court, make a plan to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025,” said Presler. “And then to vote for conservative justices in 2027. If you do all these things, you could have a 5 to 2 Republican majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court going into the 2028 presidential election.”
Will Pennsylvania voters understand this relatively complex process, as opposed to a single up-or-down vote to keep or remove an elected official?
“I want people to know there is a plan in place, and ultimately, if every Trump supporter comes out in 2025, 2026, and 2027, you will keep winning. That’s the ultimate message. You keep coming out [to vote], you keep winning. Period.”
Presler said he has not discussed this judicial campaign with Musk.
“I think Elon’s a little busy working on the Department of Government Efficiency,” said Presler. “And building rocket ships and providing free speech [on X] rather than messing with little Scott Presler right now.”
Presler noted that after past elections, the Republican Party “tended to pack up and go home, after celebrating a victory lap, and just kind of rested on their laurels.
“Now, we’re already staffed, and we’re already preparing for 2025,” he said. “We don’t want to make the same mistakes.”
Early Vote Action has also moved into the blue state next door to help a Republican win the governor’s race in New Jersey.
“We showed people you can win the commonwealth,” said Presler. “You can win a Senate seat. You can flip two congressional seats from blue to red. And Pennsylvania is the only swing state that delivered a Senate seat. Arizona didn’t. Wisconsin didn’t. Nevada didn’t. Pennsylvania did.”
“And so with that credibility, I’ve already told people, ‘Hey, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, mark your calendars, and you get everybody out to vote.’
“We’re investing early. I know yard signs don’t vote, but I think, especially in an off-year election, you’re going to see Early Vote Action [put up] our ‘Vote No on Retention’ signs.”
“Victory begets victory,” said Presler. “I think the Democrats are truly very demoralized. They’re licking their wounds…We’re fired up. We want to keep winning. We’ll make Pennsylvania the next Ohio.”
“We’re going to keep registering voters,” said Presler. “We’re going to keep showing up at farmers’ markets and gun shows. The days of Republicans not being 24/7, 365 are over.”
