2024 Democratic Primary Review: Who Won... and Why

The 2024 Democratic Primary has come and gone, and the voters have spoken. But what did they say? Uncover the seismic shifts within the Democratic Party following the 2024 primary elections with me as we dissect the victories, the protests, and what they spell for the future. President Biden clinches a decisive win, yet the 7% protest vote for Dean Phillips speaks volumes about internal party dynamics as we march towards the general election. We're peeling back the layers on Bob Casey's unchallenged Senate nomination and the upcoming tussle with Dave McCormick, alongside a deep dive into Eugene DePasquale's triumph in a hotly contested Attorney General race. The influence of name recognition, regional backing, and candidate diversity are all on the table as we analyze the ingredients for success in these critical seats.

The State Treasurer's race has set social media ablaze, spurring a discourse that's both heated and revealing. Join us as we spotlight candidate Bizarro's strategic campaign maneuvers, wielding his political roles and relationships to harness institutional support. The potency of endorsements and the impact of a historical vote on abortion rights insurance coverage in 2013 are examined under our microscope, revealing how these factors intertwine with public opinion and campaign results. It's not just about the headline candidates; we're interpreting the broader trends and voter sentiments shaping the Democratic strategy for the upcoming electoral showdown.

Prepare to be surprised as we tease a deep analysis of Philadelphia's electoral landscape in our next episode. Despite a short break from the mic, rest assured that a treasure trove of insight lies ahead, with hard-hitting statistics and angles poised to challenge the status quo. We're gearing up to arm you with a formidable understanding of the City of Brotherly Love's political heartbeat, ensuring you won't want to miss a beat of our compelling narrative. So mark your calendars, and join us for an eye-opening journey into Philadelphia's political surprises.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

Well, the 2024 Democratic primary election has come and gone and the voters have spoken. The question is, what exactly did they say? Welcome to the Keystone Reckoning podcast. I'm your host, jesse White. It is Wednesday, april 24th 2024, and we are going to take a look today at the aftermath and the results of the 2024 Democratic primary, which was held yesterday. Some surprises, some non-surprises. 24 Democratic primary, which was held yesterday Some surprises, some non-surprises.

Speaker 1: 0:58

Let's take a look at the different races and the results, starting at the top of the ticket, president Biden, obviously the winner on the presidential nomination, with 93% of the vote, just under 7% voting for Dean Phillips. That was obviously a kind of well-known protest vote by numerous people around the state. A lot of the progressive groups were kind of advocating for that. That's just to make a statement. You know the odds of those folks actually not coming home to vote for Biden in the fall is very minimal, but there was a point to be made and they made it. By comparison, bob Casey received 100% of the vote, so you know. The question then is how seriously is that taken? I think that what it will require is for the National Party and the Biden campaign to give pause and say wait a minute, why did we get that undervote? What does it mean? What can we do to address it going forward? That's a topic for another day. Today we're just doing kind of an overview, but it definitely is something the party will take notice of and what they do with it is really kind of up in the air and up for debate. So, obviously, us Senate Bob Casey, by comparison, as I mentioned, unopposed 100% of the vote that's about as safe as it gets. Obviously, as I mentioned, unopposed 100% of the vote that's about as safe as it gets. Obviously he'll face off against Dave McCormick in the fall. There's a lot of issues with McCormick that are starting to come to light, including that New York Times article about him growing up on a farm. Again, we're going to talk about that another day.

Speaker 1: 2:27

But that race was really not much to talk about, probably the most boring race on the ballot, and that's just by virtue of what. It was Okay. So let's get into the statewide row offices, because this is where things start to get interesting and we're going to talk about each individual race. But then there's a trend that I really want to talk about that I think is really important because to me the overall results, while obviously very important, are also tea leaves to be able to find trends, patterns, indicators that can either confirm or dispel conventional wisdom. And I want to do a little bit of that because I think that's the part that gets glossed over, as everybody's kind of recovering from the primary and gearing up for the general. But there are important lessons to be taken from those and I want to talk about them.

Speaker 1: 3:13

Ok, so attorney general's race, eugene DiPasquale, a former colleague of mine in the state house, a former two-term auditor general, won the state with 35.7% of the vote. Next was Jack Stolmeister, coming in with a little over 20%, coming in with 20, a little over 20 percent, joe Kahn with 16 percent, keir Bradford Gray with nearly 15 percent and Jared Solomon with 13 percent. We're going to talk about that race again in a different episode in more depth, because there's a big, deep dive there. But the takeaway from there I think and I have someone who watched that race To me this was Eugene DiPasquale won, not that he's not qualified.

Speaker 1: 3:56

There was no endorsed candidate in the race from the state party and the narrative was kind of across the board. We have five good candidates. You can't go wrong with any of them. That seemed to be kind of the consensus that you saw on Twitter and on social media is that everybody was free to pick who they wanted. There was no real bad candidate in the bunch. Everybody was free to pick who they wanted. There was no real bad candidate in the bunch and as a result of that, with it being kind of a level playing field, it really opened up an opportunity for Eugene because he had the name recognition and really what this showed and there was one other race that I'm going to talk about that highlighted this is that voters went with the name they knew. Voters went with the name they knew.

Speaker 1: 4:42

You know Eugene, two times statewide office winner, eight years of earned media coverage as an auditor general no scandals. You know he did run in PA 10 for Congress in 2020, by all accounts, underperformed in that race. I would argue that that largely had to do with a lot of the people advising him and some of the really horrible ads that they put together kind of really tone deaf ads to run against Scott Perry. Point remains, overall, well known and you know when we'll look at the breakdowns. But you know, in the western part of the state, really you know anything, west of Harrisburg. He just dominated because he was known out there and all four of the other candidates were all from the east.

Speaker 1: 5:18

So it set up that, you know that geographical divide where it really there was a situation where Eugene just didn't. All he had to do was not screw up. He didn't screw up, right, he ran a competent, somewhat quiet campaign and what you saw was everybody else or not everybody else, but a lot of the other candidates you know, saw what was happening. They tried to focus in on that and tried to kind of, you know, narrow the narrative became, well, it's a two man race between me and GD Pasquale as a way to get to raise money and to get votes, and it kind of fell flat across the board. I think that really, of all the people in that race you know here, bradford Gray being the only woman on the ballot, that's one where I think she could have and probably should have done better. And I think that when we take a look at some of these campaign finance reports, which obviously aren't all out yet, that's going to really tell the tale, because I'm very interested and we're going to talk about you know how much not only how much did the candidates raise like we're all obsessed with that, but how did they spend it? And I think that might be one of those races we're going to look at it and say, wow, that was probably there were better approaches in terms of both strategy and how to spend your dollars, and then also what you spent your dollars on. Again, we'll get into that more deeply. But Eugene wins the attorney general's race.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Auditor general race. Malcolm Kenyatta, state rep, ran for US Senate in 2022 against Sean Fetterman and Conor Lamb in that race. Malcolm Kenyatta, state rep, ran for US Senate in 2022 against Sean Fetterman and Conor Lamb in that race and didn't do very well at all. Even in his home of Philly was the endorsed candidate this time around he beat Lehigh County auditor or a Lehigh County controller, mark Pinsley, rather handily 64 percent to 36 percent%. Not a whole lot to say there. That was a race that you know. Of all the statewides, it really fell under the radar. It was, I think, definitely the one with the least amount of juice and again, I think we'll be able to have a conversation about resource allocation and how that impacted things.

Speaker 1: 7:25

But let's talk about to me, the biggest. I don't want to say upset, but I think the race that had everybody surprised this morning and that was the state treasurer's race between state rep Ryan Bizarro from Erie and who was again a sitting state rep he was the endorsed Democratic candidate and Erin McClellan from Allegheny County. She ran for Allegheny County executive last year. She was also a former congressional candidate. So in an instance where Kenyatta, as the endorsed Democrat for Auditor General, won with 64 percent of the vote, bizarro fell 20 points below that and lost to McClellan 54 to 46. That's a thumping right. That is a thumping in a statewide race against an endorsed candidate where McClelland didn't it wasn't like she like dramatically outspent him or did anything. It wasn't one of those scenarios where he didn't have the resources. And there are a lot of reasons for that and I want to touch on a couple briefly.

Speaker 1: 8:22

Because of all the races that were out there among the statewides, this is the one that, if you were on social media, if you were on Twitter, this was the one where I had everybody kind of chirping back and forth at each other. There was a lot being said about this race. A lot of people really dug in and felt very strongly about it and you know in a way that, for example, like in the auditor general's race and even the attorney general's to a lesser degree, I think the auditor general's race people put on the pay no mind list. I think the attorney general's race, everybody may have had their favorites but there were no strong feelings about this candidate is so much better than the other candidate. I think everybody kind of took a wait and see approach and in a five candidate field that makes sense and also people like to back winners. There was no clear winner there. I mean, you could have made an argument where any one of them could have been more competitive. So I think everybody was kind of keeping their power dry. The Treasures race wasn't that?

Speaker 1: 9:17

For several reasons, and this is what I really want to talk about. So first of all, I think one of the reasons that everybody expected Bizarro to do well or to honestly to win was that he had all of the institutional support he had all of you know as not only just the party endorsement, but he went out and got endorsements up one side and down the other and he had an impressive list of endorsements to show. So let's talk about that as conventional wisdom Number one endorsements. In of themselves. They're great. They are not votes, they are not. And a lot of organizations. You know, when I used to get endorsements as a candidate or as a state rep, running for reelection or even working for other candidates, the endorsement was great. But my next question is yeah, but now what? What does it come with? And I don't mean that purely transactionally, but obviously you're hoping it comes with a donation to be able to get that word out there. And then also, how are you going to communicate that endorsement to your members? That's a really important piece of this, because if they don't tell their members that you're the endorsed candidate, then what's the point? Right? So there's that. So Bizarro had all the endorsements. He also had the, you know, and here's how he got, in my opinion, here's how he got the state party endorsement Is. So, as a sitting state rep, he was able to leverage that in a good, in a smart way. Okay, he was the democratic policy chair.

Speaker 1: 10:51

For those of you don't know, the policy committee is a kind of a, a kind of a special kind of committee within the caucuses. So they don't actually like vote, they don't like move. It's not a committee that like needs to move legislation. It's basically a traveling road show for the caucus to go all over the state and put on public hearings to raise awareness about issues, to learn about things. It's not a bad thing. I want to be clear, and when I was a rep I used the policy committee. We had several hearings in my district and it could either be you would go to them as a member and say, hey, this is something happening in my district, I want to raise awareness of it. Can we get a policy committee hearing in here? And then you would have, you know, several colleagues you know would come in and they would sit there and you would bring your witnesses not your witnesses, you would bring in your people to testify and give information as a way to raise awareness. You'd invite the media, the whole bit. It's not a bad thing. It's a little bit of a dog and pony show, but it's an okay dog and pony show because it could actually accomplish something and it's you know, it's like a one day thing. You do it in a government building, whatever. I did some on a lot of the fracking and environmental things. I know we did some on property tax reassessment, which is, by the way, another issue we're going to really talk about in the coming weeks here, after things settle down from the primary, because it's a hot topic again and so they're useful.

Speaker 1: 12:12

So as the chair of that committee he then got to go everywhere all over the state and make connections everywhere all over the state. So when he was there because typically what would happen is the members that are on the policy committee were by and large members that were in like really safe districts or members that really like expense accounts, and you know the joke would be I'd be sitting on the floor. I never did this part of it. I more than enough going on back home. But there would be members who would be like who's our captain tonight? And that meant who was going to be the person, the lobbyist or whoever buying dinner, right, who's the captain? And it was a lot of the same people, kind of the lifers, the people who had been there for a long time and they enjoyed going out and traveling and you know they did their job. But they also liked getting the per diems and staying places and going to dinner and, you know, kind of seeing the Commonwealth.

Speaker 1: 13:08

And so in doing that Bizarre was able to make a lot of connections, one of the other things that was helpful for him. He was the caucus administrator for a while. The caucus administrator, within the Democratic caucus, is the person who literally decides where your office is and where your parking space is, and staff and stuff like that. So as a member, especially as a rank and file member, that's someone you needed to have on your good side because they could make your life a little easier, a little harder, inside the Capitol. And so he was able to make a lot of connections and he was able to leverage a lot of those connections and I'm quite certain I wasn't there, but I know this is what happened is he went to all of his colleagues all over the state and said hey, you know I'm running for treasurer, can I have your endorsement? And they were like sure, why not? You're a colleague, why not? I don't really know the other person? And then he was able to take that leverage into state committee endorsing and thought he was off to the races.

Speaker 1: 14:00

The problem was or several problems is one there was. There were a lot of people that did not really, that just didn't like him, quite frankly, and I could see it, you could really see it start to develop over social media and I've had my own interactions but I'm going to leave those out of this. That's not really relevant to this. But I'm going to leave those out of this. That's not really relevant to this, but it certainly doesn't dispel what I kind of suspected and saw happening, where there were people that were like posting screenshots of how he responded to people, very confrontational even with McClelland all through. There's a lot about like campaign finance reports and like there were a lot of stuff back and forth and the legitimacy of all of it can be debated.

Speaker 1: 14:58

There was also he had an ethics complaint that was filed against him. That was exposed by. It was brought out by the Republicans about and this is bizarre and I still don't know how this happened. His campaign social media was linked to his official Commonwealth like website, which even when I was there 10 years ago, that was an absolute, could have never happened. I don't know how that happened. I don't know. But the ethics complaint was filed because basically, that's using state resources for political purposes. It's no joke. People have gone to jail for that. I'm not saying that would happen here, but it's serious right, especially if someone's going to press it. The ethics complaint was filed and then the ethics commission came back and said well, we're not allowed to take action within 60 days of an election, so we can't take action on it now, which you could debate the merits of that. I get why people don't want to weaponize that process, but as of today, it is no longer 60 days after the election. Had he been the nominee, you could be damn sure that that would have moved forward. It might still move forward, I don't know, but that was going to be a problem because that's something we have gone. I think we finally gotten past that whole bonus gate, that whole, you know that whole thing. You don't need that right now.

Speaker 1: 16:15

The other thing that hurt him was there was an amendment that he voted for in 2013. I remember I was there actually voted against it. That involved providing insurance coverage for abortions in certain circumstances. The details are, you know, kind of not really the point, but it was. It was construed as an anti-choice vote and in this election cycle obviously, where obviously choice is the, you know, one of the biggest issues, you know globally or generally, you know, across the board, that was problematic. You know he was very much backed by the like the Catholic Conference, and there was. You know there were some votes that were considered conservative, votes that came back to haunt him, and anytime you have somebody that has held office for he's been in for like 10 years you know you've got a voting record eight miles long that can be used against you Procedural votes. But you know and then there's the whole of this is how many per diems you got over the years, and as policy committee chair I'm sure you had a ton of them.

Speaker 1: 17:12

The end of the day, my gut instinct is because the state party did virtually nothing to support this ticket I think that had to do with the most money raised by far was by the attorney general candidates that's what happens and because there was no endorsed attorney general candidate, that left a void of where there'd be money going in to support a slate. The treasurer and honor general candidates just didn't raise enough to do anything. So there were like no slate cards, there was no digital push, it was nothing. Because the state party doesn't have the money and so without that kind of leadership, that party endorsement didn't mean nearly as much as it could have, nearly as much as it would have, like you know, in the general, obviously. So the other part of it. I think, gut instinct, no way to corroborate this. No one's going to say it out loud.

Speaker 1: 18:05

I think there was a real concern in that race, especially that if Bizarro had won, you would have a ticket of all men, all white men, with the exception of Malcolm Kenyatta, who's black. That would have, you know, in a race where reproductive rights is going to be such an important issue and you know, for those of you that don't know, democratic voters are 60-40 women in Pennsylvania. They make up a disproportionate amount of the Democratic vote you absolutely need Democratic women to come out to win Pennsylvania this fall. Not having a woman on the ticket talking about those issues, I think to many people would have come off as mansplaining and insincere, not to say that men can't have good, solid, strong, valid opinions about reproductive rights. Of course they can, but I don't think it would have had the same resonance.

Speaker 1: 18:59

Now there are people that will say well, what does the state treasurer have to do with abortion? Well, what does the state treasurer have to do with abortion? And there are things actually that they do in terms of, like you know, ethical investment and social investing and divesting, and that's something for another day. But I think there's also a symbolism right To have a woman running for and holding statewide office. And, by the way, the Republican, the incumbent treasurer, is a woman, stacey Garrity. So to have a Democratic woman in office, that can be that also symbolic figure, I think has a lot of merit, I think it's important.

Speaker 1: 19:33

So I think voters saw that and I think voters also were like I'm voting for the woman. You know, I think in a lot of instances, all things being equal, voters, democratic voters are inclined to vote for the woman if they feel that they are both competent candidates. So I think there was all of those factors came into play. I think also you had a fact that Bizarro is from Erie, obviously much smaller, mcclellan's for Allegheny County, much bigger, and when you go to vote it has your county next to your name and you know, you know, and Bizarro won Erie overwhelmingly, mcclellan won Allegheny overwhelmingly. Obviously that tilts heavily in her favor. So McClellan was up all night and you know it, never really, she was never really in danger of losing that race. They called it relatively early actually. So that's one where I think there are very specific reasons.

Speaker 1: 20:24

But it was interesting because this morning everybody and I've become very annoyed, quite frankly, with pundits and reporters and everybody that are trying to do this like drive by analysis, right when they don't really know what it's like. They don't know what they're talking about, they just haven't done the research to like really understand. And then they make these like sweeping statements and sometimes when they do it before an election, it can be very hurt or very harmful because they basically using their, their position and they're setting conventional wisdom that in many cases is just not accurate and then people go with it. But again, story for another day. But this morning there was a lot of oh, that was the shock of the day. Shock of the day. No one saw that coming. But if you were really watching the race, I don't think anybody predicted you know the fact that she won by nearly 100,000 votes. But the writing was on the wall and the pieces were there and I think for those of us that were really watching that race, it was not a shock. The margin might have been a surprise, but the outcome was not a total shock.

Speaker 1: 21:31

So, from all of this and the, there are a couple of other races. I want to mention congressional races. Summer Lee won her primary, uh patel handily. That's also an interesting dynamic. That's one of the more interesting districts and dynamics in the country. Um, that merits its own episode. But that was. You could see that coming right. But it was definitely a very spirited and kind of nasty outside money. Um, you know a lot of outside money from republicans were coming into it. You know the lot of outside money from Republicans were coming into it. You know a lot of things happen in there. Um, the other one was in my district of PA 10, which we've talked about before. Janelle Steltsen ended up winning uh with and I want to pull it, so I have it exactly right she won a six way primary by with 43% of the vote, almost 44%. That was similar to the Eugene DiPasquale race. I'm saying it right now. That was almost exclusively on Name ID.

Speaker 1: 22:35

She was well known for being an anchor, a TV news anchor, but there were real questions that are not going to go away. Former registered Republican doesn't live in the district. From what I understand, she has no intentions. She's going to basically buy a place in the district but really not live there, which she's you know, and she did. I'm sorry, she's a phony, I'm just going to say it. She's a phony and, by the way, I'm going to keep a running tally of how many fundraising solicitations I get from her, because I got two before 9 30 last night, in both an email and a text. I'm going to bet that I get 500 solicitations for money from her between last night and november. That's my prediction. Five, well, maybe not 500, 250 for and I have not and will not give her a dime. I have a lot of problems with that.

Speaker 1: 23:30

And that was one of those races where she put out a polling memo that was internal, didn't give anything. Behind it said she was in the lead, she did raise money, but everybody's like, oh, she's the front runner. And then it became conventional wisdom and it just rolled. I didn't like that at all. Um, I think, quite frankly, scott perry's gonna mop the floor with her. Um, and I we're gonna be watching that race very carefully because it's here in my backyard. Um, but I think her and eugene were situations where, uh, you know, name id was everything. That's all that was.

Speaker 1: 24:03

And but here's the thing. You know what? I'm going to save this for the next episode because it's such an important. It's such an important thing that I want to do a little more research, to get a little more numbers, and I want to be able to really really talk about it, and we're already running a little long today, so I'm going to hold off, but tune in tomorrow and I'll give you a hint. It has to do with Philadelphia and you're going to want to hear this because it's going to surprise you.

Speaker 1: 24:33

What I'm going to have to say. This is in terms of numbers and results and breaking up some conventional wisdom. So come back tomorrow. I know we were a little light on some of the episodes, mainly because we were I was so involved in, so involved in being involved in some of these races and the day-to-day that comes with that. But now obviously we have some more time. There's going to be a lot to break down, a lot of deep dives. I'm looking forward to it because I have a lot to say in case you can't tell. So come back tomorrow we will have our next episode. It's going to be a good one.