Republicans made a major political comeback in Pennsylvania in 2024 after a series of disappointments in the last election.
President-elect Donald Trump won the state by 1.7 percentage points. Republicans took over the ranks and ousted two Democratic incumbents in the House of Representatives along with longtime U.S. Sen. Bob Casey.
They even flipped the Northeast Philadelphia State Senate, electing the first Republican state senator to represent Philadelphia in over two decades, maintaining a six-seat majority in the chamber and securing a foothold in the Democratic-leaning city.
Republicans focused on the economy, immigration and attacking President Joe Biden, while national Democratic messages focused on abortion and protecting democracy. The Republican Party was boosted by Trump’s campaign appeal and focus on people who like him but might otherwise fail to show up in the polls, as well as anti-incumbency sentiment. His campaign also flourished among youthful men.
“When he’s on the ballot, Republicans do better,” said Robert Speel, a professor of political science at Penn State Behrend.
Trump invited voters to the polls, who then rejected the Republican Party in the vote.
“I just vote Republican. I know more about Donald Trump than anyone,” said Nick Cromley, 56, a dishwasher at Dickinson College in Carlisle, two days after the election. Cromley claimed to be a Democrat until Trump ran for office.
Red wave
This year, Pennsylvania, like the rest of the country, made a change nationally. Trump won Pennsylvania with more votes than any other GOP candidate in statewide history, boosting his support in rural areas, unseating Vice President Kamala Harris’s lead in suburbs and urban areas, and benefiting from his campaign’s underperformance in those areas.
Philadelphia’s suburbs helped propel Trump to the presidency in 2024, and more than 200 municipalities in the area have turned more toward the president-elect. He became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Bucks County since 1988 and gained popularity among working-class voters in Delaware County.
» READ MORE: Donald Trump won Pennsylvania with more votes than any other Republican candidate in history. Here’s how he did it.
Trump also had a clear influence on congressional races in Pennsylvania. Democratic Reps. Susan Wild and Matt Cartwright lost their seats to Republican challengers State Reps. Ryan Mackenzie and Rob Bresnahan Jr. in areas where Trump has made gains since 2020, winning support from working-class Latino voters and Rust Belt voters in Lehigh Valley and Northeastern Pennsylvania elections.
Many Latino voters in Pennsylvania supported Trump’s promises on the economy, putting aside the candidate’s provocative rhetoric and disdain for his personality.
Trump’s victory was a reversal of 2020, when Biden won by just over one percentage point with help from suburbs, cities and areas around Philadelphia’s hometown of Scranton. Harris lacked Biden’s particular appeal in the Scranton area.
Even though voters rejected Trump four years ago, he was still seen as a driving force behind widespread Republican success in the state this year, including key wins in state-level offices.
The GOP also rebounded this year from widespread losses across Pennsylvania and the rejection of Trump-endorsed 2022 midterm candidates, especially state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin), who lost the governorship to Democrat Josh Shapiro by more than 14 votes percentage points.
How Donald Trump and the GOP bounced back in Pennsylvania
Republicans have halved Democrats’ voter registration advantage in the state over the past four years, and while some Democratic Party leaders dismissed the registration increase as a lagging indicator of the support Trump already had in the state, the GOP saw it as a promising result for a dedicated ground game.
In 2022, many Pennsylvania Republicans owed their losses in every major race to Mastriano, which held extreme positions, was underfunded, and barely engaged in activities beyond its base. Trump was considered toxic to some Republicans, and his huge defeat caused him to reflect.
In 2024, Republicans held back on running candidates like Mastriano in Pennsylvania and the importance of issues like abortion rights, which helped spur Democrats to success in 2022, five months after the Supreme Court struck down the bill Roe v. Wade — waned in favor of voters focusing on topics such as immigration and the economy.
And Trump — now a more “mature” politician in 2024, said Josh Novotney, a lobbyist and GOP strategist in Pennsylvania — catered to working-class and low-propensity voters by increasing turnout and drawing out votes in historically Democratic areas. Republicans who took part in the vote in Pennsylvania benefited from this.
“I think a lot of the oxygen in the room has been devoured by the president, so I think Trump has actually won over a lot of voters who haven’t leaned Republican in the past,” Novotney said.
Senator-elect Dave McCormick was the first GOP Senate or gubernatorial candidate to win Pennsylvania since 2016, and he did so in part by catering to low-propensity voters across the state, as Trump has done in the past.
Mackenzie and Bresnahan, who flipped the 7th and 8th congressional districts, told The Inquirer last month that they believe enthusiasm over Trump’s candidacy – and their own merits – propelled them to victory.
State Sen. Joe Picozzi believes he was able to flip the Democratic ticket in Northeast Philadelphia “because we knocked on 70,000 doors, because we went to every event we were invited to, because we met people where they were,” he told The Inquirer Thursday marks a newfound shift from “the Republican party of the country club” to “A Republican Party that speaks to the actual, real, you know, kitchen table concerns of working-class Americans.”
One elected Democrat called his victory the “most embarrassing part” of the election results, and state Sen. Sharif Street, chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said Picozzi had a particularly strong ground game because his Democratic opponent had weaknesses.
To ensure a successful GOP future in Pennsylvania, Republicans will need to determine how to continue to cultivate their support among middle-class and working-class voters, Novotney said.
“If we figure out how to do it using the kitchen table issues that I think we’ve talked about with both working-class and middle-class people, I think that’s a long-term majority rule,” he said.
One bright spot for Democrats
Pennsylvania is still purple. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman holds one of two U.S. Senate seats, and Shapiro remains a popular governor and potential 2028 presidential candidate.
Amid widespread disappointment, Democrats had one bright spot in this election: They maintained a single-seat majority in the House of Representatives as voters divided their ballots.
House Democrats succeeded because they focused on promoting their accomplishments in a specific district rather than the “more esoteric” values-based message of a national party, said Street, the state party chairman. Ironically, much of their success was made possible by the Biden administration’s economic conditions, he said.
It wasn’t that voters didn’t agree with Democratic values, Street argued, they just didn’t want to hear them, worried about putting food on the table, something Republicans were more successful in communicating.
Voters who turned out in 2024 rather than 2022 “were more likely to blame Biden and Harris for inflation and were more open to Trump’s promise to take down the establishment,” said David Wasserman, a political analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report .
So with the 2026 midterms approaching and lower turnout expected, the question is whether Republicans will be able to maintain their strength in the state without Trump on the ballot and a different segment of voters emerging.
“The Trumpism-without-Trump formula has, for the most part, not worked in any off-year election,” said Adam Carlson, a data analyst and former pollster.
Carlson expects dissatisfaction with Trump in the White House will help the Democratic Party recruit strong candidates. Democrats can also take comfort in the knowledge that their U.S. House candidates outperformed Harris in Pennsylvania’s most competitive districts.
In Street’s eyes, the impact of Trump’s absence in the 2026 election depends on how he performs as president.
“Republicans may be glad he’s not on the ballot, depending on how he governs,” he said. “… Whether Trump is an asset or a liability, we have seen that he is both.”
