2024 Election Toolkit: Pennsylvania
What's at stake in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania is highly competitive this year, with both the presidential and senatorial contests on the line. Pennsylvania is one of the former “blue wall” states that flipped for Trump in 2016 but narrowly returned to the blue column in 2020. The success of Gov. Josh Shapiro and Democrats in the legislature is promising, but the combination of a fervent Trump base and a likely stronger Republican senatorial candidate in Dave McCormick suggests that progressive wins here in 2024 are far from a safe bet.
Races to Watch
Pennsylvania's Senate Seat
This battleground seat is key to defending a majority in the U.S. Senate
Pennsylvania Attorney General
A state attorney general is the "people's lawyer." They represent state agencies in court, enforce laws, and have the power to protect the public interest.
In the race for Pennsylvania state attorney general, People For has endorsed Keir Bradford-Grey.
Our endorsements
Bob Casey
People For's endorsement for Pennsylvania's Senate Seat
“Bob Casey has been an advocate, a fighter, and a friend in the Senate. His reelection will be a key victory that will continue our forward momentum and help our country sustain the progress we’ve seen over the last four years.” says People For President Svante Myrick.
Key election dates
September 19th, 2024
October 21, 2024
November 5, 2024
The Far Right Landscape
Pennsylvania is one of the swing states that was targeted by “Stop the Steal” activists and Trump’s legal team after President Joe Biden narrowly won the state in 2020. Christian nationalist state Sen. Doug Mastriano helped lead the unsuccessful efforts to overturn Trump’s defeat. He mobilized support for Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results in Pennsylvania and used campaign funds to charter buses to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021
In 2022, Pennsylvania Republicans nominated Mastriano for governor. Mastriano campaigned with dominionists and QAnon conspiracy theorists, and portrayed his run for office as spiritual warfare. Ephrata-based podcaster Steve Turley, who has spoken at the World Congress of Families, produced a pro-Mastriano propaganda film that he hoped would help push the state senator into the governor’s office. Mastriano and Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz both lost, leading the state GOP into a disastrous 2022 election.
In a special legislative election this year, the MAGA label helped defeat Republican candidate Candace Cabanas, allowing Democrats to hold onto their narrow majority.
Moms for Liberty held its first national summit in Philadelphia in the summer of 2023. Its activists took over some local school boards, with disastrous results, sparking some spirited and successful counter-organizing by defenders of the freedom to learn.
Pennsylvania has been an organizing focus of national New Apostolic Reformation leaders like Dutch Sheets, Chuck Pierce, and Lance Wallnau. In January, Pierce kicked off his 2024 work saying Pennsylvnaia was “the first state we focused on to watch and war for this nation.” Local dominionists include “prophet” Julie Green, who campaigned with Mastriano. Green, who has claimed that Joe Biden is dead and being played by an actor, has become a regular speaker at ReAwaken America events, and Trump family members have appeared on her show. In 2014, NAR “apostle” Abby Abildness prophesied that the government of Pennsylvania was “destined to serve as the holy example to nations.
Pennsylvania is also home to the Rod of Iron sect, an apocalyptic offshoot of the Unification Church that worships with assault rifles and has been involved in right-wing political organizing.
Pennsylvania has also seen white nationalist organizing. SPLC once called Keystone United “one of the largest and most active single-state racist skinhead crews in the country.” In 2016, white nationalists scheduled a “unity rally” in the capital of Harrisburg just a few days before the elections. ADL reported that Keystone United’s activists ramped up in the early years of the Trump era. Antisemitic and pro-Moscow propagandist and political operative Charles Bausman advanced white nationalist and other right-wing causes in Lancaster and hosted a gathering of white supremacists in his barn in 2020 before fleeing to Moscow after the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.
Far-right Rep. Scott Perry, who the Philadelphia Inquirer reported “led the charge to throw out Pennsylvania’s votes in the 2020 presidential race,” chaired the congressional Freedom Caucus from 2022 to 2024.
In 2020, Trump’s team worked with some success to mobilize Amish voters and they’re doing the same this year. Trump was the keynote speaker at a National Rifle Association “presidential forum” on Feb. 9, 2024.
