The crowd lined up waiting for the meeting of the Bucks County Election Commission earlier this week was angry. The only thing missing was the pitchforks.
The hullabaloo was caused when one of the commissioners, Diane Ellis-Marseglia, announced the week before that state Supreme Court rulings don’t actually matter, and she was going to count illegal ballots in the Keystone State's U.S. Senate race, anyway.
DAVID MARCUS: PENNSYLVANIA VOTERS TO SEN. CASEY: ‘IT’S OVER, BOB'
On Wednesday, she sort of apologized to the frothing crowd demanding her resignation, then on Thursday Democratic Sen. Bob Casey conceded his loss to challenger Dave McCormick. For all intents and purposes the controversy was over, but why had it happened in the first place?
"This is all about 2026," Nick told me outside the government offices.
In his late 20s or early 30s, Nick is one of those Gen Z conservative men you keep hearing so much about, hair slicked back, sunglasses just so. "Casey isn’t gonna be the senator, but they want these ballots to count next time," he said.
This all speaks to a warranted fear among Democrats that Pennsylvania, long the swingingest of the swing states, could be moving, like Ohio and Florida before it, solidly into the Republican column.
While the race between McCormick and Casey was supposedly close enough to merit a recount, the race atop the ticket between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris was not. It wasn’t a blowout, but like the national tally, at about a two-point lead, Trump’s win was decisive.
Even in Philadelphia, the bluest corner of the commonwealth, Trump improved upon his 2020 vote totals while turnout lagged for Harris and the Democrats. That is a loud warning alarm for what used to be the party of Jefferson and Jackson.
Swing states don’t tend to stay swing states forever. Oregon, for example, which is now so far left that Chairman Mao would say, "tone it down a bit," was a toss-up 30 years ago, but times and parties change.
For now, Pennsylvania still has one Democrat senator in John Fetterman, who at times seems to chart his own centrist course against the leftist headwinds of his national party, and Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro, who also seems circumspect about abject progressivism.
But if the Democrats nationally fail to see what Fetterman and Shapiro see, that unchecked wokeness and far-left policies are roundly and soundly rejected by the voters, then even they won’t be able to keep Pennsylvania purple.
"If it wasn’t for double standards, the Democrats would have no standards at all," one man with a Trump sign shouted outside the election commissioner’s meeting on Wednesday, and his point was easily taken.
For four years we heard little else about Trump other than his election denialism, and we were told it was a grave and grievous threat to the country. Yet here was an elected Democratic official promising to break the law and count illegal ballots, just to put one of her own in office.
Democrats in Pennsylvania face a dangerous crossroad looking forward. Fetterman and Shapiro can continue to at least gesture towards a more centrist approach, but if the national party continues its lurch to the far left, it might not matter much.
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If in four years the Democrats once again nominate a far-left San Francisco liberal such as Gavin Newsom, there is every reason to believe that Pennsylvanians will continue their march to the right.
These were always Joe Biden and Ed Rendell Democrats, they were never Nancy Pelosi Democrats.
For Republicans, the lesson of Pennsylvania couldn’t be simpler. Just stay the course, simply embody what President-elect Trump rightly refers to as common sense.
If Republicans can turn Pennsylvania reliably red, it will be a sea change in national politics, the kind that fundamentally transforms what our political parties advocate and stand for.
That is really why Casey tilted at the impossible windmill of a recount. It's not about him, it's not about now, it's about next time. It’s about maintaining that wiggle room in ballot counting that so often nudges Democrats across the finish line.
But this time, the people noticed, this time they came out to protest, and next time, they may be poised to hand Republicans the key to generational power.
