The more things change, the more they stay the same.
While Republicans may have garnered most statewide offices and a U.S. Senate seat, former President Donald Trump’s coattails did not reach far enough to flip the state House of Representatives.
With the final votes tallied for all the House races, the Democrats retained their one-person majority for 2025.
The state Senate remains firmly in Republican control, so for any bills to pass into law, they must be something that both parties can agree upon, a recipe for moderation.
Republicans fought hard to take two local seats but were unsuccessful.
Democrats retained the Philadelphia seat held by Rep. Kevin Boyle, who is stepping down, and the Bucks County seat held by Rep. Brian Munroe (D-Warminster). Lawyer Sean Dougherty, a Democrat, bested Republican Aizaz Gill to keep that northeast Philadelphia spot in the Democratic column.
Rep. Frank Burns, a Democrat in Cambria County, which was slow to count its ballots, held onto his seat, despite voters in his district supporting Trump by 30 percent in 2020, according to Spotlight PA.
Democrats unsuccessfully targeted Rep. Craig Williams (R-Chester/Delaware), flooding the airwaves with negative commercials.
“The state House races showed the power of incumbency and the gerrymandering that created those seats,” said longtime Republican strategist Charlie Gerow, CEO of Quantum Communications. “Not a single incumbent lost. Even the Trump sweep wasn’t able to overcome that.”
Even though the Democrats have only a one-person majority, they can control the agenda and block Republican bills. They’ve also shown a willingness to take long breaks when one of their members drops out, causing their majority to vanish.
Spokespeople for the Democratic and Republican House campaign organizations did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
Elections are always followed by another tradition: finger-pointing season. I’ve spent my entire life in politics right here in western Pennsylvania, which became the looking glass for the entire nation as people tried to figure out what has happened to turn the two parties into battle camps.
Allow me to offer a few things I’ve learned.
Lessons for Republicans
It’s not all about TV. We need to compete with the Democrats in terms of field work. Knocking on doors and asking someone to vote for a candidate remains the most effective way of persuading voters.
Go beyond polling. An era of endless polling has left us with the misimpression that elections are only about reading peoples’ minds. In truth, elections are also about changing peoples’ minds. True, polls tell us what issues resonate with voters, but we need to identify the unarticulated and unfulfilled aspirations of voters. This is a lesson taught in 1991 by the late Harris Wofford who was appointed senator to succeed John Heinz. Wofford’s advisors – chief among them, James Carville – realized that health care for the middle class was increasingly a point of anxiety. Polls had shown that the number one issue identified by voters was jobs – but this will always be the case, just as a sufficient supply of oxygen would trump jobs if you put it on a choice of polling questions. Wofford and Carville recognized that it was the unrealized concerns that mattered. When that case was put to voters in a persuasive way, it allowed Wofford to overcome a political juggernaut known as Dick Thornburgh.
Achievement still matters. Stacy Garrity took the reins at Treasury and immediately laid out a series of goals: return more abandoned property than anyone else, reform how state pensions invest, expand the college savings program. Treasury might be the dullest important job among the statewide, but Stacy showed that a well-articulated record of accomplishment can be an unassailable fortress against political anger ginned up by an opponent. She ended Tuesday night with more votes than any other candidate on the ballot, including Donald Trump, and became the highest vote-getter in modern history, surpassing even Gov. Josh Shapiro. That’s how future stars are made.
Tamp down the anger. Watching television should not induce post-traumatic stress disorder. Bring some joy to the thing. A good lesson here is an ad produced by Pittsburgh’s own ColdSpark media, on behalf of state House candidate Michael Perich. Going up against a well-entrenched and much-liked incumbent, the Perich camp produced “Wrong Way Matzie,” which employed an animated picture of the incumbent flying the wrong way, interspersed with old movie clips and bright music that broke through the angry clutter of other ads and entertained people as well. Perich came within a hair’s breadth of winning and Perich, even in defeat, doesn’t look like just another angry politician. In short: Happy warriors win friends.
Lessons for Democrats
Un-fringe yourselves. Party activists on both sides have traditionally tended to the extremes. This was first noted in 1984 by political scientist Emmett Buell Jr. who saw that candidates for party delegate in New Hampshire weren’t exactly middle-roaders. That has accelerated in both parties, but it is nowhere as vivid as in the exotic assortment of wailers, cause-finders and all-around scolds that now steers the party of JFK and Truman. This has been made all the uglier by the emergence of a brand of antisemitism that hinges on the notion that Israel is an imposition on the Middle East rather than a refuge for persecuted Jews who practice democracy. Here in Allegheny County, the largest city is run by a cadre of leftists incapable of balancing the books, and the county council is a haven for loud extremists, some of them so supportive of the poor that they would make more of them by taxing the middle-class into poverty. Nationally, the Democrats have chosen to politicize things that should not be political and taken the tar brush to people who are religious or just out of step with the current fashion. Think about this: the Catholic vote used to be reliably Democratic. This year, the only Catholic on the national ballot was JD Vance.
Take off the robes and mortarboard. Class in this nation was once defined by income. Today, class is just as readily identified by educational attainment. A conservative university professor is a museum-quality find. This correlation between university degree and liberal politics is not a result of one causing the other. It is a result of one group taking over academia and turning it into a place where dissent is strongly encouraged, but only so long as it conforms with the liberal orthodoxies of the academy. I have news for them: a boilermaker, welder or truck-driver will soon be the only middle-class wage-earner able to send their child to college without amassing debt. Self-aggrandizing piety is pretty much the only luxury still available to the overburdened university student. Democrats need more than universities to promote their message and that means not just listening to non-college voters. It means taking them seriously.
The Gender Gap runs both ways. The press has long focused on the leftward political drift of women and suggested that this means there’s something wrong with the Republicans. A bit of introspection would help here. Men voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, much as they have for other Republicans. That’s a gender gap, too. And it’s not going to be solved by explaining away differences of opinion with terms like “toxic masculinity” or, my favorite, “mansplaining,” which has come to mean any unwelcome opinion from a male. Figure out why men aren’t voting for your party. I’d venture to say that it’s because, increasingly, they don’t feel welcome.
I close in noting that every election carries its own, sometimes unique, lessons. There is one that stands out this year: when it comes to the people, the system works. Now, it’s up to the people they elevated to make things work as well.
A Potemkin news site less than a year old is promoting nearly a dozen Democrats running for the Pennsylvania General Assembly using paid social media posts apparently designed to give the viewer the impression the message came from an authoritative news source rather than a partisan political committee.
Additionally, a recent report from Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) constructed a rugged argument that the online-only “news” site, the Morning Mirror, was connected to a national political action committee, Forward Majority, that backs state-level Democrats across many states.
Morning Mirror began running the Instagram and Facebook ads for the Democrats on May 23, the day of the Pennsylvania primary, using generic positive messages with uncontroversial, feel-good political positions. For example, a message will say a candidate is “working to lower costs for Pennsylvania families,” or the candidate has a “campaign priority for Pennsylvania: good-paying jobs.”
(Recent examples of Morning Mirror ads for down-ballot Democrat candidates.)
Yet a check of the Morning Mirror’s homepage clearly shows the site does not strive to create original news content in any meaningful sense. On Sept. 12 this year, the most recent “stories” posted on the site’s homepage all dated back to August, meaning no contemporary content had been created in two weeks. Although fall was beginning, the site’s “lifestyle” section was inviting readers to “Celebrate Spring at the 2024 National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC.”
As CJRhas reported, the web URL themorningmirror.com was first purchased in March of this year, and Facebook and Instagram accounts for the site were created about the same time. The Morning Mirror had published a total of 119 articles by August 20 this year, also according to CJR. As of this publishing, its Facebook page has fifteen followers.
The content on the site also does not contain author bylines or author email addresses, two key indicators that can be helpful in sorting real news sites from fake.
According to a Broad + Liberty analysis of the Meta ad library which archives ads purchased on Facebook and Instagram, Morning Mirror has spent somewhere between $57,000 to $70,000 on the Pennsylvania ads, creating between 3.1 to 3.6 million viewer impressions across those two social media platforms. (The Meta ad archive produces ranges of money spent and impressions, so exact figures are not available.)
The candidates receiving the boost include:
Jim Wertz (Senate District 49, Erie)
Elizabeth Moro (House District 160, Delaware/Chester)
Hadley Haas (HD 44, Allegheny)
Anna Thomas (HD 137, Northampton)
Eleanor Breslin (HD 143, Bucks)
Anand Patel (HD 18, Bucks)
Sara Agerton (HD 88, Cumberland)
Anna Payne (HD 142, Bucks)
Nicole Ruscitto (SD 37, Allegheny)
Rep. James Haddock (HD 118, Lackawanna)
Rep. Brian Munroe (HD 144, Bucks)
Four of the eleven candidates are running for seats in Bucks County, widely considered the most “purple” county in the commonwealth.
Late Tuesday, the Morning Mirror launched its first negative ads of the season against eight Republicans. Unlike the ads boosting Democrats, the language is slightly more targeted by referencing policy votes.
For example, one of the new ads said, “Sen. Devlin Robinson voted to send taxpayer dollars to private schools.” Robinson is the incumbent in Allegheny County’s SD 37, in which he’s being challenged by Ruscitto.
The Morning Mirror is putting far less money into the negative posts, however, with most of them only receiving about a $100 budget to reach about 1,000-5,000 people per post.
The Republicans being targeted by the negative ads are all incumbents, and match up to the same districts as the Democrats that the Morning Mirror has been promoting for months. They include:
Sen. Devlin Robinson (SD 37, Allegheny)
Rep. Craig Williams (HD 160, Delaware/Chester)
Rep. Shelby Labs (HD 143, Bucks)
Rep. Joe Emrick. (HD 137, Northampton)
Rep. Sheryl Delozier (HD 88, Cumberland)
Sen. Dan Laughlin (SD 49, Erie)
Rep. Valerie Gaydos (HD 44, Allegheny)
Rep. K.C. Tomlinson (HD 18, Bucks)
In its brief existence of less than eight months, the Morning Mirror has spent over $172,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads spanning Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin, all swing states.
The Pennsylvania Department of State declined to say whether the Morning Mirror’s activities might violate the commonwealth’s campaign finance laws.
“The Department of State operates on a complaint-driven process. The Department does not offer interpretations of the campaign finance reporting law,” DOS spokeswoman Amy Gulli said.
All of the ads say the Morning Mirror is owned by Star Spangled Media, a business entity registered in New York. Star Spangled Media has not answered requests for comment from several media organizations including Axios, and CJR.
In 2022, Axios outed Star Spangled Media as the engine driving a “massive network of social media communities in political battleground states that can activate ahead of elections and policy fights[.]”
The CJR hypothesis that Morning Mirror is really an extension of Forward Majority makes sense. According to Forward Majority’s website, it “has been leading the [Democrats’] fight back to power in state legislatures, mobilizing more than $50M and helping to flip 65 seats and 2 chambers,” since it was founded in 2017.
CJR also pointed out that while Morning Mirror articles may not contain explicit bylines, there is author metadata for most articles, and that “the three initial posts made to the Morning Mirror were authored by someone named David Cohen.” Forward Majority’s website, meanwhile, lists someone named David Cohen as a co-founder and co-CEO of the PAC. Whether the two references are for the same David Cohen is not clear at this time.
Requests for comment from Broad + Liberty sent to the Morning Mirror’s one locatable email address, and also to Forward Majority were not returned. Additionally, emailed requests for comment to all eleven of the candidates receiving the advertising support did not respond.
UPDATE: This article originally stated that the Morning Mirror was not running negative paid posts against any candidate. That changed just as this article was going to publication early Wednesday morning when the publication purchased the eight ads against Republicans. The article has been updated to reflect that new information.
Democratic politicians have always run on being the pro-choice party. But at this point, it has turned into an actual obsession for them. It’s their only platform in Pennsylvania.
At the Democratic National Convention, there was a tent set up to perform abortions. It’s a very morbid activity to have at a political convention. They pretend that every single elected position has control of abortion laws. It’s ridiculous at this point.
Harris’ campaign bus slogan is “Reproductive Freedom,” which means abortion. During the 2023 election for Bucks County commissioner, the Democrats claimed the Republican candidates were going to ban abortion. Commissioners have nothing to do with abortion laws, but Democrats count on voters being uninformed about what elected officials do and what they can control.
First, let me say I am pro-choice, and I voted for Democrats for 20 years. The Democratic Party has changed. I do believe that women should be able to make their own decisions about having children, but I also know enough to realize it’s 2024, and women have so many options to prevent pregnancy.
Access to contraception has changed tremendously over the years. It’s a different world young women are living in now versus the world many middle-aged women grew up in, and it shows. I find it embarrassing for those older women because they are showing their age. I am even more embarrassed for older men who claim to be “the only pro-choice candidate” while never having to deal with the risk of getting pregnant or knowing the difference between Plan B and the abortion pill.
Birth control pills are free for many people with health insurance. Birth control pills can be available over the counter, too. Anyone at any age can go to Amazon and order a plan B pill to prevent pregnancy. (Many people over 40 will have to Google what that means.)
More than 60 percent of actual abortions are done with an abortion pill. Medication abortion accounted for 63 percent of all U.S. abortions in 2023—an increase from 53 percent in 2020. These pills can be obtained over telehealth. Abortion pill ads are streamed to young women. It’s very easy for anyone to Google “Plan B” or abortion pill and access the information quickly. It’s a very different world for women today. Thirty years ago, women didn’t have any of these options.
States always had their abortion laws. Voters in states vote for the state-level politicians they want to represent them. That’s why abortion laws differ by state. They always have, even before Roe was overturned.
Since the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, it’s now a state’s decision. Specifically, in Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) stated in one of his many TikTok videos, “As long as I am the governor, abortion is safe in Pennsylvania.”
He understands the law. So when I see the Democrat running for Congress in Bucks County or Sen. Bob Casey Jr. claiming Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Bucks) or Dave McCormick (the Republican running for Senate) will ban abortion nationwide, it’s a bald-faced lie.
America has record-breaking inflation. Our country is involved in wars, antisemitism is at an all-time high, illegal immigration is out of control, and Democrats’ main concern is lying to their voters about abortion. I find it insulting that Democrats tell women they need politicians to help them not have babies like we are too stupid to figure it out on our own. It’s also insulting because Democrats pretend like they want to protect women, yet allow males to play girls’ sports and use girls’ bathrooms.
When voters go to the poll this November and every November after, don’t let Democrats scare you into thinking you need them to prevent women from having babies. Women are smart and know how to protect themselves. We need leaders who can bring down the cost of items and protect national security, not abortion panderers.
Nearly 2,000 people filled the gym at Wissahickon High School in Ambler, Pa. on Monday to hear Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer make the case for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
The audience’s energy and enthusiasm mirrored some Trump rallies.
And if vice presidents are supposed to be the president’s attack dogs, Shapiro bared his teeth for this potential audition to share the ticket with Harris.
In remarks greeted by cheers, applause and whistles, Shapiro fired broadsides at Trump while Whitmer lambasted Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the Republicans’ vice-presidential nominee.
Gretchen Whitmer (Credit: Harris for Pennsylvania)
“Vice President Harris has been battle-tested,” Shapiro said, touting her background as “a tough-as-nails prosecutor.”
“She is ready to be not just the standard-bearer of our party, but to be the 47th president of the United States. She’s not only ready. She’s damn ready. You know who else knows she’s ready? Donald Trump knows she’s ready.”
“He’s afraid to debate her now…He’s afraid to debate her because he can’t defend his record.”
“He’s got a record of failure,” Shapiro claimed.
“He packed the Supreme Court. He ended Roe v. Wade. Donald Trump did that,” Shapiro said. “He did that when he had no earthly idea of how to be president. He didn’t know what he was doing and there were a whole lot of guardrails around Donald Trump when he was president.”
He told the crowd to “be extra scared” because the U.S. Supreme Court “just ruled that the rule of law doesn’t apply to Donald Trump,” a reference to a ruling defining the scope of presidential immunity.
“He is dangerous. He is destructive, and the guardrails are off.”
Shapiro also attacked the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” alleging it was “Trump’s Project 2025,” though Trump played no role in creating this conservative wish list compiled by a D.C. think tank.
“I’ve got a message to Donald Trump: Stop sh*t-talking America,” Shapiro added. “While he’s hugging the flag, he’s ripping away our freedoms. It’s not freedom to tell our children what books they’re allowed to read…It’s not freedom to tell women what they’re allowed what they’re do with their bodies.”
Whitmer turned her sights on Vance. “He’s made his values clear. He does not see women as equals. He does not want everyone to have a seat at the table. He’s scared of us because Democrats want everyone to have a seat at the table, even cat lovers and dog lovers alike.”
“He is efficient. In one sentence, he insulted women, Black people, and Jewish people,” said Whitmer.
The people who DVJournal spoke to were fans of both Harris and Shapiro.
Robert Arnold of Doylestown said Shapiro is “clearly thoughtful, intelligent, not reactionary.” He met Shapiro once, and “he was very pleasant and approachable. I agree with a lot of his policies.”
Ekins Park resident Roz Weiss called Harris “brilliant.”
“She’s got the energy we need,” said Weiss. “She’s a person that comes from the heart like Joe Biden. She cares about people. She’s got a lot of courage.”
“In America, we’re a tapestry of people,” added Weiss, who was one of the White women supporters on a two-hour Zoom call for Harris last week. “We’ve got to celebrate that not denigrate it.”
She believes Shapiro is “a man of integrity and honesty.”
Her daughter, Amy Martin, of Abington, said she supports the Democratic candidates because she has a transgender child and a 12-year-old daughter.
“I want her to be able to choose what to do with her body,” she said.
Oreland resident Paul Halpern said he “loves” Shapiro’s policies as a governor.
“He’s highly capable,” said Halpern. “He’s got a lot of government experience. He started at the bottom and worked his way up.”
As for Harris, “I think she’s battle-tested.”
“She’ll rip [Trump’s] liver out and serve it with a nice chianti during the debate,” Halpern said, quoting “Silence of the Lambs.” “I think she can win,” he added.
Former state Sen. Daylin Leach, who lives in Upper Merion, said he likes and admires Harris.
“She’s peaking at just the right time,” said Leach. He also praised Shapiro as someone who is in politics to help people.
“He cares a lot about people,” said Leach. “He cares about his community.” And Shapiro listens to others’ perspectives. “He’s a rare person in politics.”
Darby Township Commissioner Racquel Holman said the rally was “great.”
“It was energizing,” said Holman. As for Shapiro, “I think he’d make a great running mate for Vice President Harris.”
Kush Desai, a Republican National Committee spokesman, dismissed the criticisms.
Harris, Shapiro, and Whitmer were beating “the dead horse that is Project 2025,” Desai said.
Pennsylvania Democrats are featured in a new ad pushing President Joe Biden to end his reelection campaign.
A group called Pass the Torch is spending $36,000 to air an ad on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday in both Washington, D.C. and Delaware. Morning Joe is reportedly must-watch TV for Biden.
The ad follows a #PassTheTorch Saturday rally outside the White House featuring chants of “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Thank you Joe, it’s time to go.”
On Sunday, Democrat-turned-independent U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia echoed the rally’s message. “I came to the decision with a heavy heart that it’s time to pass the torch to a new generation,” Manchin told CNN.
The TV ad airing Monday morning “features Democratic voters from Pennsylvania urging President Biden to step aside for a new nominee,” according to Pass The Torch.
Pass the Torch calls itself a network of “activists, organizers, and voters” who believe that it’s imperative for Democrats to have a ticket that can beat Donald Trump. Democratic activist Charlie Bulman, who worked as a Biden campaign organizer in Pennsylvania in 2020, attended the #PassTheTorch White House rally.
“I just think it’s clear that the president is not going to be up to do the job for another four years, that his candidacy is not putting us in the best position to win,” Bulman told the progressive news site Mother Jones. And, he added, he has concerns about what backing Biden will do to down-ballot candidates.
Bulman worries about the impact of Biden’s campaign on down-ballot races and the party’s credibility. “I think it puts other folks in a tough position defending his competency,” he said. “And I think that they might lose trust among voters if they’re forced to do that.”
Biden has lagged behind Trump in the polls for months while other Democrats have polled better. The RealClearPolitics average puts Trump ahead of Biden by 4.5 percent in Pennsylvania. That includes an Emerson College poll released last week giving the Republican a five-point lead, which is outside the margin of error.
The super PAC’s website cited a “stunning crisis of faith” in Biden after his terrible showing at last month’s debate against Trump.
Biden gave rambling answers at the debate, then failed to alleviate concerns during an interview on NBC. Earlier this month, he called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “President Putin” and Vice President Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump” at a NATO press conference.
A Philadelphia radio show host who interviewed Biden after the debate later resigned after it was revealed she used questions given to her by the Biden campaign. A Milwaukee radio show host also said Biden’s campaign supplied him with questions for an interview.
That’s enough for Pass the Torch leaders, who include Rhode Island state Sen. Tiara Mack and Public Citizen Senior Climate Policy Counsel Aaron Regunberg. They blame Biden’s team for protecting him “for years” from live and unscripted interviews.
As of Sunday morning, 36 congressional Democrats have publicly called for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 campaign. But Biden’s campaign insists he’s not leaving, releasing a letter from the Democratic state party chairs in seven swing states — including Pennsylvania’s Sharif Street — urging Biden to stay in the race.
“As we enter the final 100-day stretch, President Biden has proven he can beat Donald Trump if we all do the work,” the party chairs wrote.
When Delaware Valley Democrat Ben Kamens celebrated his taxpayer-funded student loan bailout on social media, the Democratic communications professional meant it as a paean of praise for President Joe Biden. Instead, he sparked a social media firestorm that led to more than 23 million views and thousands of snark-filled posts denouncing Kamens, a Lower Merion High grad, as a symbol of the Democrats’ out-of-touch privilege.
Kamens used his X (formerly known as Twitter) account to post a letter from his student loan company reading “Congratulations! The Biden-Harris Administration has forgiven your federal student loan(s) listed below with Nelnet in full.”
“This is why elections matter,” Kamens posted. “Thanks, Joe Biden!”
His debt was listed at $8,250. Kamens later posted that his job allowed him to pay it down ahead of schedule with a monthly payment of $400. “I’m happy to let the government cancel it,” he said.
Within hours he was a social media phenomenon.
“No doubt the working people of America are thrilled to step in because…you couldn’t be bothered to pay off $8,250 in principal in 14 years—which is $589/year,” wrote National Review editor-in-chief Charles C.W. Cooke.
“‘The government’ didn’t pay for that – *I* did, after already paying off my own loans of course, b/c contracts and character matter,” posted Dr. E.J. Antoni, a Heritage Foundation economist. “Or at least they used to…”
Kamens earned a Bachelor of Arts from Temple University. His LinkedIn lists Penn State University as a school that he attended, although it appears that he didn’t earn a degree there.
He’s done well since graduating from Temple.
Kamens worked for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, according to his Facebook page. He was a Democratic National Convention Committee staff member in 2016 and 2020, too.
Kamens’ X profile said he serves in “Comms on Capitol Hill.”
What it doesn’t say is that he’s been communications director for Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) since 2023.
“According to LegiStorm, this staffer is making $91k/year, not including annual bonuses,” wrote Maggie Howell, who worked for former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). “I cannot wrap my head around how he qualifies for Biden’s program.”
“Why are we paying off his loans when he is obviously well and able?”
“Imagine working in comms and tweeting this with the address of a half-a-million-dollar house,” added journalist Bethany Mandel. “It’s a Donald Trump campaign ad.”
Mandel was partially right. The Bucks County house at the mailing address that Kamens included in his post is estimated to be worth almost $600,000, not half a million.
Critics of the student loan bailouts backed by Biden and most congressional Democrats say Kamens is a perfect example of why the policy is wrong.
First, data consistently show college graduates have higher incomes and are wealthier on average than their non-college-graduate peers. They’ve also enjoyed higher employment rates and work in higher-status jobs. Spending a combined $870 billion to $1.4 trillion — the total cost of all of Biden’s student debt bailout proposals, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget — to benefit these disproportionately affluent, White citizens makes little economic sense, critics say.
Second, there is the “moral hazard” question. What happens when you reward people for not paying their bills and use the money of their neighbors who paid theirs to cover the costs? What will the next generation of students do when they see how it turned out for borrowers like Kamen?
“Why does Biden not want to do the same thing for loans on trucks owned by plumbers? Why not for credit cards or auto payments or mom-and-pop credit lines? The answer, I’m afraid to say, is disgustingly classist: Because Joe Biden and his party believe that college students are better than everyone else.
“Because Joe Biden and his party believe that college students are of a finer cut. Because Joe Biden and his party prefer college students to you, and they think that those students ought to be rewarded for that by being handed enormous gobs of your money.”
Kamens could be the poster child for this view of student debt bailouts.
Before joining Kaptur’s office, he had a brief spell with the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a group that seeks to limit the proliferation of nuclear devices.
Kamens is known in Democratic circles on Capitol Hill.
He served in a variety of positions with Democratic leaders including former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Congressmen Sean Patrick Maloney and Andy Kim from 2019 to 2021. He was then-Congressman Jesus “Chuy” Garcia’s press secretary and digital director from September 2021 to August 2022.
Kamens’ current and former bosses are longtime supporters of student loan forgiveness.
In fact, Kamens was Garcia’s press secretary when Garcia called for the cancellation of student loan debt in December 2021 and January 2022.
“Biden is using taxpayer money in an unconstitutional scheme to pay off allies of his own party who are making over $200,000 a year,” conservative commentator Stephen L. Miller, host of the VS Media podcast, told DVJournal. “People should take note of this.”
A person at Kaptur’s office who said his name was ‘John’ after a long pause told DVJournal to email Kamens for a comment. Kamens did not answer the email.
Update: Sometime on Monday after Broad + Liberty had requested comment from the owners of Vote.pa, the website was changed so that the top option was “Check your Registration” as opposed to “Register to Vote.” The Internet Archive contains numerous captures of the website that show Vote.pa was offering voter registration.
If you were to visit the website Vote.pa, you can enter your personal information, and the website will register you to vote with the Pennsylvania Department of State.
But don’t be surprised a few weeks later if the website is also sliding into your text messages urging you to vote for your local Democratic candidate, or maybe begins sending you even more political mailers than you already get each fall.
Vote.pa sounds very much like the real Pennsylvania Department of State website: vote.pa.gov. The website’s logo — a deep blue outline of Pennsylvania with a white “vote” inside the borders — looks thematically similar to the blue keystone with a white “PA” used in official state websites.
But tucked away at the bottom of the page is the note that the site is a project of Commonwealth Communications, a 501(c)4 political nonprofit run by J.J. Abbott, Governor Wolf’s former press secretary turned political operative.
The website’s privacy policy page (which studies say less than nine percent of website visitors actually read those disclaimers) makes clear: “We may use your personal information in connection with our political efforts and activities.” And of note, Vote.pa asks for a phone number, while the state website does not.
And, “We reserve the right to share your personal information to third parties as part of any potential business or asset sale…” — meaning the website is well within its rights to sell data collected from a visitor.
Broad + Liberty reached out to Abbott through emails publicized both on federal filings as well as on Commonwealth Communications’ website. Additionally, we reached out through a phone number listed on its Facebook page. The requests for comment were not returned or were not successful.
At least two Democratic state senators have promoted the website using their campaign-associated X accounts. Elected officials have greater leeway to promote various political messages through campaign-associated accounts when compared to “official” state accounts used to interact with the public.
Last week, Sen. Judy Schwank (Berks) told her followers “Please make sure your voter registration is up to date,” and then linked to Vote.pa in the post.
“I really want to earn your vote, but first we have to make sure you’re registered to cast it,” Sen. Jay Costa (Allegheny) said, while also linking to the website.
If the senators were tricked by the website — or alternately, if they approve of using the website to build a political database — they aren’t saying. Requests for comment to both were not returned.
Additionally, Gov. Josh Shapiro attended a voter registration event at Penn State Abington last Sunday, which was organized by two groups that promote Vote.pa on their own websites.
Shapiro can be seen on social media posts at the event hosted by The Voter Project and “Show Up Strong ‘24.” The latter group has an email address on its website that belongs to The Voter Project, so it is possible the two groups are the same. But bothwebsites point people to Vote.pa to register.
A request for comment to Shapiro’s office was not returned.
Some Republican communications have pointed people to a web URL that is not the Department of State’s website: http://votespa.com. That URL, however, redirects to the Department of State.
“Third-party organizations should under no circumstances collect people’s personal information under the guise of ‘voter registration,’” House Appropriations Chairman Seth Grove said. “House Bill 1300, a comprehensive and bipartisan election code update bill I authored last session, would have outlawed this practice. Unfortunately, Governor Wolf vetoed this bill because HB 1300 contained a Voter ID provision. Wolf, of course, changed his position a few weeks later, but his veto has left scores of unresolved election issues. Vote.pa is an obvious attempt to steal information from voters or potential voters who are very likely looking for the Department of State’s website. I believe all elected officials should call out these websites as bad actors and commit to sharing official government websites.”
The Department of State did not respond to a request for comment. Additionally, the Committee of Seventy, a nonprofit that, according to its website, “advances representative, ethical and effective government in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania,” also declined to comment.
The Voter Project is run by Kevin Mack who is a partner in Deliver Strategies, a Washington D.C.-based political consulting and political mailing firm. The Voter Project was a key player in the distribution of election grants in 2020 that later became controversial and have since been outlawed in Pennsylvania.
Not long after the 2020 election, Kevin Mack’s professional online bio said he “served as Lead Strategist for The Voter Project in Pennsylvania which was instrumental in signing up over 3.2 million people to vote by mail and leading the soft-side effort to win the swing state in 2020.” The biography is no longer available on Deliver Strategies’ website.
The Voter Project and Vote.pa also have a close professional relationship. According to Commonwealth Communications’ IRS 990 form for 2022, Commonwealth spent $1.1 million with Deliver Strategies for consulting.
Commonwealth Communications was seeded by PA Alliance Action, a 510(c)4 political nonprofit. According to PA Alliance Action’s most recent 990 filing with the IRS, the group gave approximately $2.6 million to Commonwealth Communications, with as much as $2 million of that money specifically earmarked as being available for the creation of Vote.pa.
A Democrat in the governor’s mansion. A Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court. And two elected Democrats in the U.S. Senate for the first time since 1947. (Republican Arlen Specter switched parties).
The Pennsylvania GOP entered 2024 knowing it had a lot of work to do — particularly in the Delaware Valley.
And early voter registration numbers show they’re making progress. Modest, perhaps, but progress nonetheless.
Official voter registration totals from Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties show party registration is growing, though Democrats still lead in overall registration totals.
The appetite of the electorate may be why Pennsylvania’s major parties both saw their numbers rise.
“I’m a firm believer that your voter registration status is a lagging indicator of where you are politically,” GOP strategist Chris Nicholas of Eagle Consulting told DVJournal. “It takes a while for you to say, ‘You know what? I’ve been registered X, but I’ve been voting Y the last bunch of years, so maybe I should become Y.”
National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Mike Marinella has a more aggressive explanation.
“The word ‘Democrat’ means something different to Pennsylvanians now than it did years ago. The Democrat Party has become too extreme for the voters of the Delaware Valley. Voters feel the impact of extreme Democrats’ failed policies every day as prices get higher, crime is on the rise, and families are being torn apart by fentanyl.”
Delaware Valley Republicans made most of their gains in Bucks County, with GOP registrations rising from 193,123 last May to 195,000 today. Democrat registrations fell from 198,487 to 197,853, leaving them with a narrow advantage of fewer than 3,000 votes.
Compare that to a decade ago, when during the 2014 general election, Democrats had a solid 186,865 to 174,666 advantage over Bucks County Republicans.
“The whole thing is just dissatisfaction with what’s happening in Washington,” Bucks County Republican Party chair Pat Poprik told DVJournal. “It’s driving [formerly registered Democrats] to either the third party or to us. But it’s one common thing: We’re all watching this county.”
Bucks County Democratic Executive Director Zach Kirk did not respond to a request for comment.
There are about 80,000 unaffiliated and third-party registered voters in Bucks, up from 78,382 last May.
Other counties also saw GOP growth as well.
In Chester County, GOP registration rose from 149,567 in May to 151,505. But Democratic registrations rose, too, from 156,994 to 158,604. While that margin means Republicans can be competitive, it’s also a reminder of how far the party has fallen from 2014, when the GOP had a 148,355 to 126,551 advantage.
Other Chester County registrations include 18 voters with Conservative Party affiliations; 10 registered as Independent Republicans, and two voters total registered as ‘GOP’ and ‘Trump’ parties. There are also six Socialists, 14 Independent Democrats, two Democratic Socialists, and one each for Communist, Obama, Socialist Party USA, and the Socialist Progressive Parties.
Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s long-forgotten Forward Party had one registered voter.
For Montgomery County, the Republican Party added about 1,000 voters, bringing its total to around 204,000. Democrats saw a similar rise, going from 301,543 to 302,330. That 100,000 Democratic advantage is about twice as big as it was a decade ago. Holding steady in Montgomery County is progress for the GOP.
In Delaware County, however, the roles — and rolls — are reversed. Democratic registrations rose from 201,616 to 203,316, while GOP numbers ticked up from by fewer than 1,000 votes to 146,224. In 2014, Democrats had just a 172,601 to 168,744 lead.
The net result is a GOP that’s gaining but is still far behind. And, adds Jeff Jubelirer of Bellevue Communications Group, registrations don’t necessarily translate into votes.
“Most people don’t change their registration, even if they change their ideology. You look at the coalition that helped elect Donald Trump in 2016. Many of those same people were blue-collar Democrats who are now much more Republican.
“Did some change their registration? Sure. But I think a number of folks may be still registered as Democrats but are voting Republican,” Jubelirer added.
He said there are also moderate Republicans who generally find themselves supporting Democrats more than they had in the past. “They’re more the Reagan Republicans and the Mitt Romneys…the traditional country club business moderate.”
The Delaware Valley, once a GOP stronghold, has become largely blue. Jubelirer said migration from the heavily Democratic cities to the suburbs helped bring about the shift. That trend caused Democratic voter rolls to increase while Republicans lagged behind.
While much of the focus remains on the two major parties, trends show that unaffiliated voters are a force to be reckoned with nationwide. Gallup reported in January that 43 percent of Americans considered themselves independent. Republicans and Democrats were tied at 27 percent. That’s a historical low for Democrats and two points off the low of 25 percent for the GOP.
“Nobody wants to be a Republican or a Democrat anymore,” Nick Gillespie, editor-at-large of Reason magazine, told DVJournal. “These are dead parties that have ceased to represent the factions that they were created in the post-war era to represent. The independents are the place to go.”
The number is much smaller in Pennsylvania. According to Pennsylvania Department of State statistics, there are almost 1.3 million voters who belong to a Third Party or are registered Independent/No Affiliation.
It’s still a trend that analysts believe is worth noting.
“When I got active as a professional in politics here in the late 80s, the state was like seven percent independent,” said Nicholas. “And now it’s basically doubled that.”
Gillespie, who co-wrote a book called “The Declaration of Independents” in 2012, sees the change as something that started years ago. “This is a long-term structural trend that exists not just in the United States,” he said, pointing towards Brexit and the election of Emmanuel Macron as French president. “People are finally done with the zombie political and kind of cultural institutions of the postwar Europe.”
The Democrats won all five seats on the Central Bucks School Board Tuesday, sending a message that voters were unhappy with the GOP-controlled board’s direction. Reforms such as allowing challenges of patently pornographic books in school libraries and keeping political banners and other items out of classrooms, unless those were part of the curriculum, will likely be swept aside.
Democrats Heather Reynolds, Dana Foley, Rick Haring, Susan Gibson, and incumbent Karen Smith won handily.
“I am so very happy and relieved to have won reelection and to share this victory with all my running mates. But this isn’t just a victory for me or my fellow candidates,” Smith said. “This is a victory for our students, our teachers, our support staff, and our community. With this vote, we showed that love is stronger than hate and compassion is stronger than fear. And voters made clear they will not be divided or distracted from working together — all of us — to solve the real issues our students face.
Aarati Martino, who lost to Haring, thanked her supporters.
“I learned a lot and have not a single regret for running,” said Martino. “And congratulations to my opponents for winning the board race. Good luck!”
Martino told DVJournal, “We lost because not enough voters saw the danger in the policies that our opponents will propose and effect.
“We conservatives have this Cassandra-like curse of seeing the longer term and unintended consequences of actions that intend to help people but usually make things much worse. I predict our district will not be as effective in educating our children and preparing them for the future as they were for this past generation. It will take time for these policies to degrade the system because the district internally has been run extraordinarily well with many amazing people in charge, not to mention the superb teachers and staff on the front lines. And the press will not be transparent on this matter, so parents will have no idea that things could (have) been so much better. In fact, now that their endorsed candidates are in charge, at least now, the media will give us a reprieve from the constant negative media barrage!
“It is sad because I know for a fact many people voted against us because of unhappiness with their families, with their children, with their lives. These new progressive policies will do nothing to improve their situation and will likely worsen it. And I feel bad for them because I do believe our slate could have led the way in showing a much better way for nurturing and educating our children together,” she said.
Her husband, Paul Martino, also shared his thoughts on Facebook. =Paul Martino founded a political action committee, Back to School PA PAC, in 2021 and successfully backed school board candidates across the state, with 60 percent of those candidates winning.
“The first big message here is that Pennsylvania is a blue state and has been since 2020,” he said. “We stuck our finger in the dike in 2021, but the water has fully crested now. We lost pretty much everywhere last night, from row offices to the state Supreme Court. And, of course, in many school board races, including CBSD and Pennridge.
“This bodes poorly for the 2024 nominee for president here in the previously purple state of Pennsylvania, despite the recent polling. I think the current polling methods don’t reflect the now baked D advantage that the voting changes of Act 77 (mail-in ballots) brought.”
Paul Martino added that the pending redistricting decision by a judge will make it unlikely for Republicans to win seats on CBSB in the future.
“That’s terrible news if you want to keep the prestige of the district, as the Ds have made their priorities clear:…going back to advocacy in the classroom, DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) initiatives, more social-emotional learning, etc. None of this makes education outcomes better but promotes their social agenda. The kids are the real losers here.”
Dr. Steven Mass, Smith’s opponent, said, “The only winners in Tuesday’s elections are the private schools, who will have their enrollment skyrocket in the next few years when parents see what policies are coming into our district.”
Smith said, “Now that the election is behind us, I am eager to start working on some of the priorities I shared with voters during the campaign. Restoring civility to our meetings, beginning to revise these policies that have divided us over the last couple of years, working to bring additional mental health supports for our students, and ensuring we are providing a safe and inclusive environment for all our students and staff.”
