Pa. Dems aim to flip state House and Senate

Written by on October 13, 2020

Pa. Dems aim to flip state House and Senate

Just nine GOP seats in the House and four in the Senate would have to flip to blue in order for power to change hands.

By Katie Meyer, WITF

October 13, 2020

The Pennsylvania Capitol building in Harrisburg. Gov. Tom Wolf / Flickr

After years of Republican dominance, Democrats and their supporters in Pennsylvania’s state House and Senate see a path to control of both chambers this year.  

For WLVR News, Katie Meyer reports that just nine Republican seats in the House and four in the Senate would have to flip to blue in order for power in Harrisburg to change hands. 

Just because they’re possible, doesn’t mean flips are a given.  

The Cook Political Report still has both chambers ranked as “lean Republican,” which means there’s a better shot of continued GOP control than not.  

But Democrats do have a strong shot in at least two areas — the suburbs outside Philly and Pittsburgh. They’ve been getting bluer for years. And political analyst Ben Forstate says he’s starting to notice similar trends for Democrats in the suburbs of central Pennsylvania.  

They have been running really strong campaigns, and this is not an area where Democrats even contemplated competing seriously prior to 2016.  

Still, there are challenges for Democrats.  

They could lose a few seats. And after big wins in the midterm elections two years ago, most of the low-hanging seats are gone. The remaining competitive ones will be tougher battles.  

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