When Pennsylvania Democrats won three special elections in the Pittsburgh area on Tuesday night, they didn’t just cement the party’s first majority in the state House since 2010: they also turned in performances far stronger than we’d have any reason to expect based on history. In fact, one winner ran farther ahead of the standard baseline than any other Democrat who’s run in a legislative or congressional special election anywhere in the country since Joe Biden won office.
What’s more, these weren’t low-turnout affairs, as blowouts so often are. A similar special election for a neighboring district just last year saw fewer than 5,500 voters show up. Two of Tuesday’s races, by contrast, brought out more than double that figure, while turnout in the third was 66% greater.
Who are these puissant Democrats? Attorney and small businesswoman Abigail Salisbury prevailed 87-12 against Robert Pagane in House District 34 to succeed now-Rep. Summer Lee, who was elected to Congress the same night she was winning another term in the state House, in a district Biden would have won 80-19. In such a blue seat, it’s hard to perform better when the bar is already so high, but nevertheless, Salisbury on net did 13 points better than Biden.
Meanwhile, in House District 32, local party leader Joe McAndrew scored a 75-25 victory over Clay Walker to succeed state Rep. Tony DeLuca, who was posthumously re-elected in a 62-36 Biden constituency—a dominant 24-point overperformance.
But the biggest star was Matt Gergely, a local government official who smashed Republican Don Nevills 74-25 to replace Austin Davis (now the state’s lieutenant governor) in House District 35. This district would’ve given Biden a 58-41 edge, meaning that Gergely ran an astonishing 32 points ahead of the president. Daily Kos Elections has been carefully tracking special elections like these for many years, and in the 90 comparable races prior to Tuesday that have taken place since Biden won the White House, no one has done better. (The other efforts weren’t too shabby, though: McAndrew ranks third and and Salisbury is tied for eighth.)
Once this trio is seated, likely later this month, Democrats will at last have 102 sworn members, giving them a no ifs, ands, or buts majority over Republicans, who currently have 101 (and will soon drop down to 100 thanks to yet another impending vacancy). That will give them definitive control over the state House for the first time in more than a decade, an enormous accomplishment that came about in spite of the odds thanks to tremendous perseverance and, for the first time in ages, un-gerrymandered maps.
But the specials that also got them there cannot be overlooked. When a party wins power, it’s all too easy for supporters to relax, mission accomplished. This was especially so here, since Democrats already had won a majority in November—they were just held back by vacancies. Instead, though, Democratic voters came out in droves and left nothing to chance. That’s the sort of enthusiasm we need to harness in 2024, and if we can, then Republicans had better look out.
