Democrats won a special election last week for a Pennsylvania state Senate race. The victory was shocking insofar as it was in the heavily Republican district of northern Lancaster County.
Democrat James Malone defeated Republican Josh Parsons in a special election for Pennsylvania’s 36th state Senate District. It was a close race on March 25, but Malone shockingly emerged victorious, winning by fewer than 500 votes. It was a humiliating defeat for the PA GOP that lessened the Republican majority in the state senate.
Democrats hailed the victory as an example of voter unhappiness with the GOP and President Donald Trump. Yet, while Parson’s election defeat was indeed an embarrassment, categorizing it as an indictment of Trump is an oversimplification.
Malone took a victory lap with the media and deservedly so. However, he put the blame on Trump for his victory, claiming it was the so-called chaos from Trump’s administration that propelled him to victory. Malone benefited from Republican incompetence and complacency, as well as from the relative obscurity of the race being a special election that didn’t feature Trump’s name on the ballot.
“He’s chosen to do it the way he does everything, right? Throw a brick in the basket and see what comes out,” he said.
An agenda-driven media tried to reinforce that narrative. Consider this article from the Associated Press, which quoted Malone and then claimed, “Voters backed that up.” The article then proceeded to quote just two people, both of whom I would wager have never supported or voted for Trump. However, this was purposely done to try to advance the narrative that Republicans are bleeding supporters because of Trump.
While this was a typical left-wing Democrat response, it was also intellectually disingenuous and baseless. Trump won this district and the state in November. People voted for this so-called chaos. It’s what they wanted. Malone benefited from PA GOP incompetence, not because the majority of voters turned on Trump. There was significantly less turnout for the election (about half as many people voted than usual). Democrats capitalized on that and had a fluke election victory.
Winning Pennsylvania state Senate District 36 is usually not a problem for Republicans, who typically win by a greater than 2-to-1 margin. However, the PA GOP does have a voter turnout problem when Trump is not running that it needs to address. It’s not an exaggeration to say that its entire system needs to be revamped.
Consider the recent election results in the state.
Trump was the first Republican candidate to win Pennsylvania since George H.W. Bush in 1988 when he defeated Hillary Clinton in a close election in 2016. He lost to Joe Biden in another close race in 2020 and then defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.
Dave McCormick defeated Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in the 2024 Senate election by the slimmest of margins, less than .25% of the vote (and fewer than 16,000 votes). Before losing to McCormick, Casey had served as senator since 2006, when he soundly defeated Republican Sen. Rick Santorum. McCormick won because Trump was on the ballot, and he benefited from down-ballot voting. Otherwise, he would have lost.
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman was elected in 2022 without Trump on the ballot, defeating Dr. Mehmet Oz by nearly five percentage points. In 2016, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey was most likely headed for defeat against Democratic challenger Katie McGinty, whom Toomey beat by less than 1.5% points. Toomey was saved by Trump being on the ballot.
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In gubernatorial elections, the last Republican in office was Gov. Tom Corbett, who was the state’s governor from 2011 to 2015.
In 2024, Trump worked extensively to win Pennsylvania. He regularly held rallies across the state. His surrogates hosted numerous events to help drum up support and persuade voters. Multiple get-out-the-vote campaigns were created to help his campaign, contacting voters to inform them and remind them of the location where they were registered to vote.
During one day in October, Trump, a 78-year-old man who survived an assassination attempt, worked at a McDonald’s in a Philadelphian suburb in the morning, held a rally in Lancaster in the afternoon, and attended an NFL game in Pittsburgh in the evening.
Did the PA GOP even put nearly half the effort into helping Josh Parsons win Pennsylvania State Senate District 36? It does not appear so.
As a lifelong resident of the state and someone who lives about an hour from this district, I can confidently say it was more of a failure of the Pennsylvania GOP than a voter revolt against Trump. Pennsylvania Republicans did an exceptionally poor job at getting out the vote. Democrats were better organized and worked harder.
Many Republicans were not even aware the election was happening. That’s an indictment on the PA GOP, not Trump. Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Republican Party must learn how to get out voters and win high-stakes elections when Trump’s name is not on the ballot.