Pennsylvania is the center of the political universe | Election Newsletter

There are 76 days left until the Pennsylvania primary election.

Julia Terruso and Jonathan Tamari here. Pennsylvania is again the center of the political universe in 2022. And yeah, we may be biased about that, but we’re not wrong either.

Every major American political trend that matters is unfolding here in PA, which now has the most electoral votes of any presidential battleground (if you take Florida off the list, which some analysts have).

We’ve got open primaries in both parties for U.S. Senate and governor. That makes Pennsylvania a political laboratory.

We’ve got Democrats running for Senate from the party’s progressive and centrist wings We’ve got a young, gay, Black man from Philly, an unconventional politician from the Rust Belt, and a moderate from the suburbs.

We’ve got a Republican celebrity doctor and a veteran who ran a hedge fund in the Senate race. We’ve got more than a dozen GOP options in the governor’s race as they try to figure out how to channel Donald Trump’s strengths without getting dragged down by his weaknesses. (Two things we don’t have are many women or people of color running.)

The stakes are huge. The next governor will influence voting laws, abortion, and a host of other issues that affect virtually every Pennsylanian. The Senate race could help decide which party controls the chamber, which will shape the fate of Joe Biden’s agenda.

And the results could provide early clues about the 2024 presidential race and its electorate.

We’ve got progressives pushing for more influence in big cities. Latinos who shifted in 2020 toward Republicans. Suburbs that swung hard to the left, edged back, and may again be teetering between the parties. We’ve got a big northeastern city, affluent suburbs, rural expanses, small cities, Appalachia, and industry towns.

We’ve got a state that remains at the center of Trump’s make-believe story about a stolen election, his attempts to overturn the results, and the Jan. 6 investigation.

In other words, we’ve got a ton to dig into. So we’re really looking forward to exploring all the twists and turns with you, from here to November.

It’ll be quite a ride: Pennsylvania is the most important place for politics in 2022.

Come at us, Georgia.

— Jonathan Tamari, Julia Terruso (@JonathanTamari, @JuliaTerruso, election@inquirer.com)

The Republican Party has opened up shop in a historically Black (and very Democratic) Philly neighborhood.

I pulled up to a steel gray building last week in Germantown, a former pre-school with fresh coats of red, white, and blue paint inside and a sign out front that declared: “Want Better? Vote Better!”

Republicans did something similar in 2020, holding a welcome meeting for Black voters at a church in West Philadelphia. Little activity followed. GOP officials said this year’s version will be more active with picnics, voter registration drives, and more.

“We’re going to go out in the community,” said Calvin Tucker, deputy chair of the state GOP. “We’re going to talk about who we are, what we represent.”

Black voters overwhelmingly backed Biden in Pennsylvania (about 92%). But in such a competitive state, Republicans hope a visible presence in Black and Latino neighborhoods could boost them even a bit.

The Republican National Committee already has similar centers in Jacksonville and Cleveland and they’re considering opening one in Pittsburgh.

The GOP saw major gains with Latinos in 2020, and some Republicans hope they can become the party of all working-class voters, not just the white ones who powered Trump’s ascent.

The Germantown opening Friday included Republicans from across the state, and about a dozen candidates.

There was a lot of shade for Philadelphia, its high poverty rate, homicide rate, and six decades of Democratic leadership, echoing much of what we’ve already heard on the campaign trail.

“If we don’t change our political thinking,” Tucker told the crowd, “if we don’t change our neighbors’ political thinking, we’re going to continue to get the same morass.”

There’s something almost Trump-y about John Fetterman’s first TV ad in the Democratic Senate race.

Not in the politics, of course, or the tone or even the overall message. But in the nostalgia for places that have been “forgotten.”

“There’s a lot of great towns in Pennsylvania that feel like their community’s best days were a generation ago,” Fetterman says in the spot, which aired on CNN and MSNBC just before the State of the Union last night. “Nowhere deserves to be abandoned.”

Fetterman is trying to tap into a very real sentiment that Trump mined to powerful effect: A sense that in much of the country, people’s potential has been cut short, their communities eroded, hope has washed away. That there’s only opportunity now in certain big cities.

I’ve heard that sentiment from voters across the state: People lamenting that their kids had to leave home to find good careers, and how they’re never coming back, while the hometowns they love decline.

Trump won in 2016 partly by appealing to these areas. He also laced his pitch to them with grievance and anger, and often with xenophobia and racism.

But he still undeniably tapped into a deep sense of stagnation. It’s a real problem that a different candidate might approach, and try to solve, in a very different way.

Fetterman’s ad suggests he’s trying to be that candidate.

It also has an element of the “tough guy” outsider appeal Trump used to reach voters who felt like “elites” didn’t care about their needs. “A Democrat with backbone,” the voice over says.

It’s a tough needle to thread. The communities Fetterman is talking to have long slid away from Democrats. Some Democrats argue it’s a lost cause — especially with so many more votes to be won in cities and the suburbs.

It’s just his first ad, but it shows where Fetterman hopes to take his campaign — and how he hopes to win the primary.

📺 Watch John Fetterman’s “No Place for Granted” ad.

“I remember when my Dad had to leave our home in Scranton, Pennsylvania to find work.”

-President Joe Biden at the State of the Union, in case you forgot where he’s from.