Meet Eugene DePasquale and Dave Sunday, the front-runners to be Pa.’s next attorney general

Pennsylvania voters have a big decision to make in the Nov. 5 election — besides the one they’re making about who should be the United States’ next president.

They’ll choose the state’s next attorney general: Pennsylvania’s top prosecutor, who has wide-ranging powers to investigate corruption, enforce the state’s laws, and represent the state’s interests nationally in lawsuits against both the federal government and major corporations. The job is also seen as a springboard to the governorship, with two of Pennsylvania’s last three governors — including current Gov. Josh Shapiro — having served as attorney general before running to be the state’s top executive.

In 2023, Shapiro appointed Republican Michelle Henry as attorney general to fulfill to remainder of his term and she chose not to run for the seat.

Voters will choose between two candidates who have different images of what a Pennsylvania attorney general should be. Democrat Eugene DePasquale is a disciplined former state auditor general and state representative who knows his way around Harrisburg bureaucracy and wants to take a proactive role in protecting Pennsylvanians, while Republican Dave Sunday, York County’s driven district attorney, is a career prosecutor who has tried thousands of criminal cases and says he is focused on redemption and accountability.

The two men also see each other as a threat to the state’s safety: DePasquale claims his opponent will enforce all of the state’s laws without question, including if Pennsylvania’s abortion laws changed, while Sunday continues to emphasize that his opponent has never practiced law in a courtroom before — a core part of being an attorney general.

Both candidates are fighting for airtime between dozens of ads and mailers overwhelming Pennsylvania voters for the presidential and U.S. Senate races here. Sunday is set to outspend DePasquale by 2-1, with $12 million reserved so far in ads through Election Day. Sunday is largely receiving support from the deep pockets of the Republican Attorneys General Association and a political action committee funded by Pennsylvania’s richest man, Jeffrey Yass. DePasquale, for his part, has won statewide twice before and has some name recognition, as well as the support of the Democratic Attorneys General Association and many labor unions.

» READ MORE: Pa.’s richest man, Jeff Yass, is spending millions to elect the Republican AG candidate in November

Although Sunday and DePasquale are favored to win over third-party contenders, four other candidates are on the Nov. 5 ballot seeking election for attorney general: Justin Magill of the Constitution Party, Eric Settle of the Forward Party, Richard Weiss of the Green Party, and Rob Cowburn of the Libertarian Party.

The Inquirer spent time with DePasquale and Sunday in individual interviews to learn more about who they are, what they agree on, and where they differ.

In an empty diner in West Chester last month, Sunday was practically jumping out of his suit with excitement.

He detailed the successes he has seen as York County’s district attorney since his election in 2018: a mental health initiative to encourage people struggling with addiction or mental health to get treatment, an intervention program for young gang members to encourage them to leave, and a robust reentry employment project that has proven to decrease recidivism in his county. If elected attorney general, he wants to package these programs so smaller, under-resourced counties across Pennsylvania could create them, too.

“I have a tremendous amount of optimism, because I know that there are issues out there in our society that are bringing people together,” Sunday said. “I see it every day.”

Sunday, 48, grew up in Dauphin County. Lacking direction as a teen, he joined the U.S. Navy out of high school, where he was deployed to the Persian Gulf, South America, and the Caribbean.

After four years of service, he got a job working at UPS — working nights on the unloading dock while he went to college during the day, and eventually switching to working day shifts in UPS’s corporate offices as he went to law school at night.

He met his wife, Lishani, while he completed a clerkship at the United Nations in New York. The two young attorneys eventually moved for work to York County, where they still reside with their 9-year-old son.

Sunday has worked as a prosecutor almost ever since, trying thousands of cases as an assistant district attorney, assistant U.S. attorney, and now district attorney. He boasts a 36% reduction in gun violence in 2023 over 2022 in York City, a small city 30 minutes north of Baltimore, and an 80% drop in gang-related violence that officials credit to their gang violence intervention program.

Democrats and community organizations, which have been quick to criticize Sunday for accepting campaign contributions from Yass, a Lower Merion billionaire who spends millions each year to try to influence the state’s elections, argued that Sunday would not stand up to Yass if he had to. Sunday’s campaign has rejected those attacks and said Sunday has never met Yass.

In the first debate between the two candidates, hosted by Lancaster-based broadcast station WGAL earlier this month, both highlighted some of their endorsements: DePasquale noted Shapiro’s and Planned Parenthood’s nods, while Sunday touted his support from the Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police and the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association.

Addressing migration and border security issues are major priorities for Sunday, who blames much of the recent opioid access in the state to drugs smuggled over the U.S.-Mexico border.

Sunday said his message hasn’t changed over the 22 months he has been running for attorney general, no matter the political ideologies of the room he’s in. He showed this later in the day at a GOP forum at Hershey’s Mill Villages & Golf Club nearby, giving his same stump speech to the conservative crowd.

But back at the diner, there is barely enough room in the booth for him as he gesticulates and talks passionately about what he says his staff in the district attorney’s office is sick of hearing about: accountability for crimes and redemption.

“That’s what’s needed in society,” Sunday says. “We are beyond the point where we need to focus on this.”

DePasquale is comfortable. He’s done the campaign circuit before.

He is reserved as he sits down for an interview on a sunny September day — and disciplined, as evidenced by his daily early-morning gym routine showcased in the CrossFit-centric commercials in his unsuccessful bid to unseat U.S. Rep. Scott Perry.

He’s well-rehearsed, too, telling his life story as he makes his case for being Pennsylvania’s next attorney general: His dad, a Vietnam War veteran, struggled with a drug addiction that eventually escalated to him selling drugs and spending time in federal prison; his brother died at age 20 and had muscular dystrophy that prevented the family from getting health insurance for most of DePasquale’s early life because of his brother’s preexisting condition.

“I know what it’s like to struggle,” DePasquale said. “I’ve had the same challenges as a vast majority of people.”

DePasquale grew up in Pittsburgh before moving as an adult to York County, where he worked as an attorney for the Department of Environmental Protection on energy and alternative energy projects. He then ran successfully for the state House, where he worked with Shapiro on legislation to ban texting and driving that was updated this year.

In 2012, DePasquale was elected auditor general, the state’s top fiscal watchdog. Some of his proudest findings include a 2015 report that found 3,000 rape kits were sitting untested by the Department of Health due to short staffing and lack of equipment. The kit backlog has since been resolved, he said. His department also determined nearly 42,000 calls to the state’s child abuse hotline went unanswered due to staffing issues, which were then addressed.

But if you ask his adult children, he’s just dad: The Star Wars nerd, cat grandfather to his daughter’s cat Shadow, adventurer, and Swiftie.

If elected attorney general, DePasquale says, he plans to take on the big fights that Pennsylvanians need, including against insurance and prescription providers that he sees as taking advantage of people or companies endangering the environmental safety of residents, among other promises.

He also says he wants to shore up election integrity as the state’s top law enforcement officer. He says he is proud to have audited counties’ election machine procurement processes, finding that officials had accepted hundreds of dollars in trips from companies selling voting machines ahead of the 2020 election as the state required counties to replace their machines with new models that produce a paper record of a person’s vote.

Although DePasquale is an attorney, he has never been a trial lawyer or prosecutor, so he has never argued a case before a jury or judge. And Sunday has alluded that he believes his opponent has aspirations for higher office, rather than focusing on the job at hand. (Shapiro, who was elected to the post in 2016, also never was a trial attorney.)

“Only one person standing here has ever been a prosecutor,” Sunday said during the Oct. 3 debate. “Only one person standing here has ever been in front of a jury. Only one person standing here has ever conducted a criminal investigation.”

“I’m the only one that’s run a complicated statewide agency,” DePasquale said in response. “That’s the type of leadership we’ll need on day one.”

On this recent Sunday, DePasquale stopped by his mom’s childhood home in South Philadelphia, knocking to talk to the registered voter there. The resident wasn’t home, so DePasquale left a handwritten note at the door, choosing not to put it in the mailbox but rather tucking it into the door handle, in observance of federal laws that prohibit putting any mail in a mailbox without postage.

“If you’re running for attorney general,” he joked, “you might wanna follow the rules.”

Both DePasquale and Sunday see the opioid epidemic as the top issue facing the state. They also have plans to shore up Pennsylvania’s existing consumer protections to hold scammers, who largely target the state’s elderly population, accountable. They both view mental health as a critical issue.

Both candidates say they will follow Pennsylvania’s abortion law, which currently allows an abortion up to 24 weeks of gestation and is unlikely to change while Shapiro holds the veto pen. DePasquale, however, is more defiant: He will not prosecute any person from another state for receiving an abortion here or a medical professional for aiding in the abortion, which Sunday says is an impossible scenario.

They both also believe there are racial disparities in the justice system, both candidates said in the Oct. 3 debate.

For Sunday, his nearly two decades in the courtroom are the most critical part of the job. Meanwhile, DePasquale said his career experience in the legislature and as auditor general make him most equipped, despite never having prosecuted a case in a courtroom before.

As national politics have become increasingly polarized in recent years, attorneys general have become the challengers of many federal policies. Republican attorneys general often challenge President Joe Biden’s administration — such as Biden’s student loan forgiveness program that was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court — while Democrats opposed former President Donald Trump’s executive actions when he was in office, such as Trump’s family-separation policy of unauthorized immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

DePasquale supports legalizing recreational marijuana, while Sunday opposes it. DePasquale opposes the death penalty, while Sunday supports it for the most violent offenders.

DePasquale said he would sue the federal government if the policies negatively impact Pennsylvanians, no matter who has the keys to the White House. Sunday, however, was more cautious and said he didn’t want to be an “activist AG” seeking to change laws, saying that is the job of the legislature, but would take a stance when necessary.