Lawyering up | PA 2024 Newsletter

📅 There are 24 days until Election Day.

In this edition:

— Julia Terruso, Katie Bernard, Jeremy Roebuck, Sean Collins Walsh, Oona Goodin-Smith pa2024@inquirer.com

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📮 Have a question about this election? Email us and we’ll try to answer it in a future newsletter.

🧑‍⚖️ With the election less than a month away, courts reporter Jeremy Roebuck, national politics reporter Julia Terruso, and election administration reporter Katie Bernard take a look at how the campaigns are readying their troops for courtroom battles:

Across the state, Republicans and Democrats are engaged in an unprecedented push to recruit hundreds of lawyers and volunteer observers in preparation for what both sides are predicting will be a torrent of post-election litigation in Pennsylvania.

The goal on both sides? Placing lawyers and volunteers on the ground to monitor voting, canvassing and certification in each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties and to handle any issues that arise.

Democrats began their recruitment effort in mid-March and boast that they’ve recruited thousands of attorneys nationwide — nearly 10 times the number on hand in 2020. Harris’ advisers say they’re more prepared this year than they’ve ever been to combat what they characterize as Republican efforts to disqualify eligible votes in court, rather than winning over voters at the polls.

“For four years, Donald Trump and his MAGA allies have been scheming to sow distrust in our elections and undermine our democracy so they can cry foul when they lose,” Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said. “But also for four years, Democrats have been preparing for this moment, and we are ready for anything.”

The party’s legal efforts in court are being spearheaded by longtime Democratic election lawyer Clifford Levine, of Pittsburgh, who served as campaign counsel in the state to President Joe Biden in 2020. He’s backed by attorneys from around the state and a team from Washington-based law firm Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr LLP that includes former Clinton-era Solicitor General Seth P. Waxman.

Republicans, in turn, have been represented so far by attorneys Kathleen Gallagher, of Pittsburgh, and Thomas W. King III, of Butler — both veterans of past GOP legal fights over mail voting — as well as by lawyers from the Washington firm Jones Day.

Notably missing this year is Columbus-based firm Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP, which represented the Trump campaign in several early Pennsylvania legal challenges in 2020, only to withdraw that representation, under pressure from clients and staff, as unfounded claims of election fraud became more central to his arguments in court.

Meanwhile, the GOP has focused on lining up its own army of “election integrity” watchdogs — including lawyers and poll watchers — in hopes of deploying 100,000 across 15 states.

Dozens of prospective volunteers showed up to a recent Republican-led training event in Fort Washington, where party officials regaled attendees with pep talks that leaned on the party’s lingering suspicions of the 2020 results. Though reporters had been invited to attend the session, they were barred from the room once actual training began.

“I’m confident that the legal team I have in place will be prepared to defend the voters in every county across the Commonwealth,” said Linda Kerns, the Republican National Committee’s election integrity counsel for Pennsylvania. “That is our goal: To protect the voters, to make sure that laws are followed, holding elections officials accountable and making sure that every legally cast ballot from an eligible voter is counted.”

⚖️ The two frontrunners to become Pennsylvania’s next top prosecutor have different ideas of what the state’s attorney general office should do. Meet Eugene DePasquale and Dave Sunday.

📺 A grieving mother whose son was fatally shot in South Philadelphia 15 years ago was shocked to see herself appear in an out-of-context clip in a TV ad supporting Trump. “I might not be wealthy, I might not be known, but I will move a mountain to get that ad down,” she said.

📊 Trump’s campaign is reaching out to young Black men, but any narrative that suggests Harris might lose out on support from the voting bloc ignores the data.

👀 For the first time in 30 years, Democrats think they have a chance at tying the Pennsylvania Senate — but Republicans aren’t buying it. Here’s a look at five of the most competitive races likely to determine the chamber’s control.

🗳 Six Republican members of Congress are suing the Pennsylvania Department of State, arguing that ballots from overseas voters — including members of the U.S. military — are susceptible to fraud. One expert called the move “a dangerous political stunt.”

🔦 As the election spotlight on Pennsylvania continues to burn bright, Elon Musk visited Butler to campaign for Trump, Republican Liz Cheney headed to Montgomery County to stump for Harris, and former Philly Mayor Jim Kenney found his way back onto the political scene.

🤝 In the New Jersey race to fill the open seat previously held by convicted former Sen. Bob Menendez, Republican Curtis Bashaw had a scary moment during a debate this week. His Democratic opponent, Rep. Andy Kim, tried to help.

🎤 We’re now passing the microphone back to Julia explain why Trump is counting on Pennsylvania’s rural voters to win:

Candidates tend to concentrate their visits and campaign operations around population centers to reach the most people, but rural Pennsylvania is a key piece of how the state votes. We spent some time in Lancaster seeing how both campaigns are trying to win over voters. Here’s a look at rural electoral power:

2️⃣ Rural voters are the second largest voting group in the state after suburban voters, and while their voting power is less concentrated, it remains the core of Republican support. Rural voters were the second largest voting group for Trump in 2020 but ranked last for Democrats that year.

🌽 Geographically, the widest swaths of Pennsylvania are still Trump country, and while rural areas are losing population faster than any other type of places in the state, Trump still managed to increase his net vote in these regions from 2016 to 2020.

🐄 Take Paradise, Pa., a rural part of Lancaster that is home to a large Amish population where Trump got 400 more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. It may not seem like a lot, but multiply that across dozens of similar towns spanning 67 counties and it starts to add up.

📈 Bucks County: One of Philadelphia’s collar counties is getting more attention than the others. Bucks County is the last remaining purple county in the region. It went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 but by a narrow margin, Biden won it by a larger margin in 2020. It is the only Philly collar county where Trump’s campaign has held a rally, sending his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. The margins in Bucks County could be a key signal of where the state will swing – and both campaigns know it.

📉 Dave McCormick: From Sen. John Kerry in 2004 to Sen. JD Vance in August, flubbing a campaign stop at a Philly cheesesteak shop is a time-honored tradition. Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick joined that illustrious list a week ago, but he at least came up with a novel way to make a mess of it. The manager of Max’s Steaks in North Philly said he was led to believe the event last Friday was for autism awareness, not a campaign stop. He wasn’t pleased to see GOP campaign signs being hung up outside, and McCormick, he said, is “not welcome back.”

📉 Joe Biden: The president came to the Philadelphia area Tuesday to campaign for his fellow Scranton native U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, who is in a tough reelection fight against McCormick. But the only voters who saw Biden speak were deep-pocketed donors who attended a private fundraiser in Bryn Mawr. That’s likely an indication the Casey campaign didn’t think sharing a public stage with POTUS would be a good look at the moment. Earlier in the day, Biden got similar treatment during a trip to Wisconsin, where he did not even meet with Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is also running for reelection.

Voting is well underway in Pennsylvania. Here’s what you need to know:

📅 Oct. 21 is the deadline to register in Pennsylvania to vote in the election.

📅 Oct. 29 is the deadline to request a mail ballot, which must be returned by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

📅 Nov. 5 is Election Day.

🗳️ Several lawsuits could change the rules for which ballots are and are not counted in November.

✉️ Mail ballots across Philly showed up with the return envelopes already sealed. Here’s what to do if that happened to you.

📋 Want to learn more about the candidates on your ballot? The Inquirer voters guide has you covered with key facts on every major race.

➡️ The Pennsylvania visits continue. Vance is campaigning in Johnstown and Reading this weekend, while second gentleman Doug Emhoff is slated to visit Montgomery and Delaware Counties, and first lady Jill Biden will stump in the suburbs next week. Gwen Walz, wife of Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, is launching a statewide bus tour in Philly on Monday, when Harris is expected to campaign in Erie.

We’re less than a month out from Election Day. Catch the latest at inquirer.com/politics, and we’ll see you here in your inbox next week. 👋