Biden was in battleground PA 3 times in a week. Why state is key to midterms and beyond

Stump speeches on crime, political extremism and “the soul of the nation” from President Joe Biden ramped up election season last week in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state in the 2022 midterm elections.

Biden’s tour through Wilkes-Barre, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh last week through Labor Day was a rebuke of far-right Republicans and a dire warning to voters about the future of democracy itself.

As he campaigned for Democrats Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Attorney General Josh Shapiro in their respective Senate and gubernatorial races against Dr. Mehmet Oz and state Sen. Doug Mastriano, political experts say the whirlwind tour underscores the role Pennsylvania will play on the national stage.

"I think it's beyond that (Pennsylvania) is a battleground state. I think you are potentially positioned to elect a governor who could single handedly try to tilt a national election in the Republicans' favor if he doesn't like the results that the voters deliver," Democratic national strategist Julie Roginsky said Thursday in a phone interview.

Roginsky was referring to Mastriano, who has suggested if elected he would require every voter in Pennsylvania to re-register and called for treating the popular vote as non-binding for presidential electors if “the election was compromised.”

Mastriano has long been a supporter of former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen and, along with Oz in the Senate race, gained Trump’s endorsement days before the May 17 primary.

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“I would say Pennsylvania, along with Arizona and Florida, are probably the three states where you are poised to select governors who will subvert democracy. … It’s not just a gubernatorial election, but the future of the country is potentially at stake and the future of democracy,” Roginsky said.

Impact of Biden's Philly speech

Hours after Roginsky’s interview with the USA Today Network in Pennsylvania, Biden in his speech from Independence Hall in Philadelphia would call “MAGA Republicans,” a growing and influential offshoot of the “mainstream” GOP, a threat to “the very foundations of our republic.”

The term "MAGA" refers to Trump's first presidential campaign slogan, Make America Great Again.

“MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people,” Biden said.

During his first campaign stop in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday, Biden also forcefully defended the FBI as the agency and its employees have come under withering criticism and threats of violence since executing a search warrant at Trump's Florida residence in August.

“It's sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI, threatening the life of law enforcement and their families, for simply carrying out the law and doing their job,” Biden said before a crowd of more than 500 at Wilkes University. “I'm opposed to defunding the police; I'm also opposed to defunding the FBI.”

Expected to run for re-election in 2024, Trump also made a stop in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday to share a stage with Oz and Mastriano for the first time this election season.

G. Terry Madonna, senior fellow for political affairs at Millersville University, said Tuesday the only thing surprising about the attention Biden and Trump are giving to Pennsylvania is that the visits are all happening so closely together.

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“We don’t even have to debate the significance of Pennsylvania, one of the key battleground states — and some might even argue it’s the key battleground state,” Madonna said Tuesday. “It doesn’t surprise me that they’re coming, it surprises me that they’re all coming within a short amount of time.”

The current Senate is split 50-50, with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the potential tie-breaker. Twenty-one Republican seats are on the ballot this November to the Democrats' 14.

Biden's approval rating

Madonna is often quick to note the “midterm curse” that typically leads to the president’s party losing seats if his approval ratings are low.

Despite a string of legislative victories, like the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s approval rating is currently at about 41% after rising in recent weeks, according to Real Clear Politics.

Madonna said the campaign stops probably won’t be the last for Biden or Trump in the commonwealth.

“Basically, what’s going to happen is they’re going to look at the polling in state after state, four or five battleground states that really matter, and essentially what they’ll do is to decide where they’re going to go and under what circumstances,” Madonna said.

A rocky campaign trail for Republicans

The main goal for any candidate after securing their party’s ballot spot in a primary is to attract as many independent and moderate voters as possible.

Biden’s speech pitting Trump’s most ardent supporters against democracy could spell trouble for Oz and Mastriano, who have long been vocal supporters of the politically polarizing former president.

The two already faced a fractured GOP when they claimed their party’s victory in May.

Mastriano has been a popular candidate among the MAGA movement, but he also faced a crowded ballot of eight other Republican candidates who collectively secured about 56% of the party’s votes on May 17.

Oz narrowly eked out a victory against Dave McCormick by fewer than 1,000 votes. With seven candidates running in the GOP Senate primary, nearly 68% of Republican voters cast a ballot against the cardiothoracic surgeon and former TV host.

Shapiro ran unopposed in his primary race and Fetterman was quickly declared the winner in the Democratic Senate primary within an hour of the polls closing despite suffering a stroke a few days earlier.

While Fetterman’s campaign typically casts Oz as a carpetbagger from New Jersey, Shapiro’s campaign has been laser-focused on Mastriano’s support of election lies, paying $,5000 for advertising consulting to a conservative social media platform often called a “haven” for white supremacists and banning abortion under any circumstance to establish his opponent as a far-right extremist.

Oz and Mastriano have both fired back at their respective opponents, saying either Democrat is “too radical” and would enact policies that would lead to higher crime and drive inflation to untenable levels.

Recent polls since the May primary have put Fetterman ahead of Oz by about 7.4 points on average and Shapiro ahead of Mastriano by an average of almost 6 points, according to Real Clear Politics.

Multiple news outlets reported last month that the National Republican Senatorial Committee had reduced its campaign ad buys by about $7.5 million in Pennsylvania, part of a total $13.5 million spending cut across the country.

While there have been previous reports of the committee considering the Senate race in Pennsylvania a lost cause for Oz, Allentown-based political strategist Samuel Chen said the advertising cuts are likely a mix of uncertainty and Oz’s wealth.

The USA Today Network in Pennsylvania reported in August that Oz has been his campaign’s top contributor, filling nearly 70% of his campaign’s $19 million raised with personal loans.

“It’s partially looking at the full map of all the states and what races are more winnable and it’s partially looking at who has the better abilities financially, and Oz and his campaign have the better ability in that sense,” said Chen, who founded policy and communications firm The Liddell Group.

Madonna added that Biden, as a Scranton native, would likely campaign in the state again as his close ties to the commonwealth have seen him stumping for candidates in campaign visits over the years.

What voter registration tells us about PA

Apart from polling numbers and campaign fundraising, where Fetterman and Shapiro are outraising their opponents by millions, another trend could point to more trouble for Republicans in November.

Democrats in Pennsylvania have outnumbered Republicans for decades, but the GOP has made significant inroads with suburban counties to narrow the gap between the two parties.

In 2015, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 980,856 voters but that gap as of Aug. 29 was just 540,353 voters, according to Pennsylvania Department of State data.

Although that trend is promising for Republicans, the voter registration data over the past 10 weeks has shown new Republican registrations lagging behind Democrats and other voters.

A Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade in June was followed by a spike in new registrations.

Just over 10,000 of June’s new voters signed up the week immediately following the Dobbs ruling, with about 57% of those voters registering as Democrats, almost 20% joining as Republican and 26% choosing another party or no affiliation.

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While some experts have been cautious to credit the court ruling as the sole factor behind the increase, a major political event, such as returning the abortion rights debate back to the states, are said to have some impact on registrations.

Since the ruling, there have been approximately 33,441 new Democrats and 19,679 other new voters added to the rolls while Republicans have seen just 17,170 new voters through Aug. 29.

Chen said the lagging trend of new Republican voters might not mean much overall, given the that the increase is marginal compared to the gains the GOP has made over the years.

Roginsky, however, said the data points to a fatigue among Republican voters over continued stolen election claims, the debate over abortion access and “Republican extremism overall.”

“This election really should have been a referendum on Joe Biden … but thanks to Trump and Mastriano and people like Oz who obviously are espousing a lot of Trump’s beliefs, this election has become a contest of ideas and that does not play well for Republicans,” Roginsky said.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Mid term elections 2022: Why battleground PA matters beyond November