HARRISBURG — Control of the closely divided Pennsylvania House is on the line, with a handful of races still undecided.
At the moment, Democrats hold 102 seats in the 203-member chamber, giving the party control over the agenda and critical committees. All seats were on the ballot Tuesday.
Not in question is which party will control the state Senate: Republicans currently hold 28 of 50 seats, and unofficial results indicate they will at least keep their majority.
Democrats, Republicans, and their allies spent tens of millions of dollars ahead of Tuesday to defend their majorities and flip seats. Despite that spending, only a handful of districts are truly in play — with a single-vote majority likely to be the outcome in the state House, regardless of which party prevails.
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Which Pennsylvania House races are in play?
As of noon Wednesday, the Associated Press had not called eight races in the lower chamber. The AP only calls races when it determines that the trailing candidate no longer has a path to victory.
Capitol insiders from both major parties are focused on three races: the 72nd District in Western Pennsylvania, the 144th District in suburban Philadelphia, and the 172nd District in Northeast Philadelphia.
All three are held by Democrats. In the 72nd, state Rep. Frank Burns (D., Cambria) is seeking a ninth term, while state Rep. Brian Munroe (D., Bucks) seeks a second term in the 144th.
In the 172nd, newcomer Sean Dougherty, an attorney and scion of a local political family, seeks to retain the seat for Democrats after defeating state Rep. Kevin Boyle (D., Philadelphia) in the April primary.
State House Democrats declared victory in the 144th on Wednesday; with 99% of votes counted, Monroe held a 1,001 vote lead, per the AP. No candidate had declared victory in the 172nd, where the AP shows Dougherty with a 282-vote edge with 95% of votes counted.
The race in the 72nd District, the state House’s most expensive and closely watched contest, has the most uncertainty. As of noon Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that just 31% of votes had been counted.
The culprit is an issue with the county’s ballot scanners.
Officials there learned that machines weren’t scanning in-person ballots, Cambria County Commissioner Scott Hunt said at a news conference Tuesday. The county initially thought there was a software problem, but Hunt said by later that morning, it was clear that “the issue was instead caused by the ballots themselves. They were not printed correctly, and therefore the machines were not able to scan them.”
In consultation with the Pennsylvania Department of State, the county set up an alternative process for collecting and securely storing the faulty ballots and rushed in a newly printed set that would scan. A judge ultimately issued an emergency order allowing Cambria County to keep its polls open an extra two hours, until 10 p.m., but also ordered that any ballot cast between 8 and 10 p.m. be provisional.
Provisional ballots are subject to extra scrutiny to make sure the voters who cast them are eligible, and are counted after all other ballots.
Ron Robertson, a Cambria County official handling communications about the process, said the county’s goal is to have enough ballots tabulated that there can be unofficial results in the 72nd District race by Wednesday night.
Burns, who has served in the state House since 2009, is trying to hold on to a district that voted for President-elect Donald Trump by a large margin in 2020.
He has run a campaign focused on keeping Republican-aligned voters in the traditionally labor-aligned district on his side. His ads, funded by at least $3.4 million from the Pennsylvania House Democratic Campaign Committee, have focused on his support for police, cutting taxes, and accusing his opponent, Republican Amy Bradley, of being “bought out by a Philadelphia billionaire-funded group.”
Bradley did indeed get almost all of her campaign cash from a PAC funded by Philly-area billionaire Jeff Yass. Some of those ads attacked Burns as voting alongside “Philadelphia liberals.”
Which Pennsylvania Senate races are in play?
It appears the partisan composition of the Pennsylvania Senate will remain unchanged, with a 28-22 Republican advantage.
Democrats flipped an open seat that covers the city of Harrisburg and some of its surrounding suburbs. State Rep. Patty Kim (D., Dauphin) defeated Dauphin County Treasurer Nick DiFrancesco there 58% to 42%.
But in a potential upset, Republicans are poised to flip a seat in Northeast Philadelphia. Former GOP congressional staffer Joe Picozzi led state Sen. Jimmy Dillon (D., Philadelphia) by almost 1,400 votes with 95% counted, per the AP.
Dillon had faced many critical news stories, including a report that a social media account for Dillon’s basketball academy posted racial slurs. Dillon denied he wrote the posts, saying others had access to the account.