In a Pennsylvania suburb whose voters are coveted by both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Nicole Ruscitto walked from house to house on a gloomy Tuesday afternoon informing residents that another key race is happening in November.
“I’m Nicole, I’m running for Senate in your district,” she told voters on the doorsteps of their red-brick homes in Bethel Park, a town about 30 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh, which, when signs are posted the canvass and the election results, whatever the metric, is about evenly split between Trump and Harris supporters. “I want to go to Harrisburg to help our families.”
In a swing state seen by both Trump and Harris as perhaps the most important in determining the presidential election, Ruscitto is running for an office that receives less attention than the occupant of the White House or members of Congress, but could have much more impact on the presidential elections. the daily lives of Pennsylvanians.
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For three decades, Democrats have been locked out of power in the state’s General Assembly. On November 5, the party hopes that the elections of Ruscitto, a school teacher and former city councilor, and three other candidates for the Senate will change that.
Should they ultimately gain control of the Senate and House of Representatives — the party’s majority in the latter is just one seat — Democrats will finally be able to send Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro a slew of laws that the Republicans are currently blocking. ranging from raising the minimum wage to the right to abortion.
“If we could have that trifecta, Governor Shapiro could do so many great things for the people here in Pennsylvania, and I intend to do that 100%,” Ruscitto said in an interview at her campaign office.
While many Americans are fixated on the presidential election, 5,808 legislative seats in 44 states are up for grabs in November, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and voters’ choices could have more impact than ever before. State governments in the United States in recent years have adopted the lack of policymaking from Washington DC, where partisan gridlock and uncooperative Congresses have led to successive presidents failing to deliver on many of their campaign promises.
Democrats are of course at a disadvantage when it comes to the geography of a state like Pennsylvania because they waste more votes
John J Kennedy, professor of political science
The results can be seen in the stark differences between the laws in the red and blue states.
Where Democrats govern, governors have enacted laws to protect access to abortion, reduce emissions linked to climate change, curb gun violence and streamline the voting process. Republican-led states, meanwhile, have banned abortion to varying degrees, focused on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, restricted cities’ gun control policies and expanded the role of religion in public education.
Many states have legislatures and governors’ mansions controlled by the same party. A smaller group of states, including Wisconsin, Kansas and North Carolina, have governors from one party and legislatures controlled by the other. Pennsylvania is the only state in the union where the two houses of the General Assembly are held by different parties.
The Keystone State is considered part of the Democrats’ “blue wall” along the Great Lakes and has supported the party’s presidential candidates in the most recent elections, although this year’s polls show Trump and Harris essentially tied connect together. Democrats have also scored victories at the state level with the 2022 election of Shapiro and U.S. Sen. John Fetterman.
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But control of the General Assembly has eluded them since 1994. John J. Kennedy, a political science professor at West Chester University and an expert on the state legislature, attributes that to Republicans’ attempt to draw district maps in their favor. The tendency of Democratic voters to cluster in the urban areas of states.
“Democrats are at a natural disadvantage when it comes to the geography of a state like Pennsylvania because they waste more votes,” he said. “The Democrats are so concentrated that they have a kind of natural disadvantage when it comes to winning a majority of seats.”
The tide began to turn two years ago, when Democrats narrowly took control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, with the party far better than expected nationally, fueled by voters’ outrage at the U.S. Supreme Court over the overturn of Roe v Wade. But Republican control of the Senate has meant that many of their legislative ambitions — including a bill aimed at protecting abortion seekers in the state, where the procedure is legal until about 24 weeks of pregnancy — have gone nowhere.
Vincent Hughes, a Democratic senator and campaign chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, said he believes more voters are aware of the importance of legislative races, citing Trump’s efforts to sway Republicans in Pennsylvania and other swing states to persuade him to join him. The plan is to prevent Joe Biden from coming to power in 2020.
“What’s happened is that the importance of state legislatures at the national level has become much more apparent over the last four or five years, and I think that will lead to more people becoming more involved in elections at the state legislature level” , he said. in an interview.
Democrats’ hopes for a majority depend on winning purple districts around the city of Erie, the state capital of Harrisburg, and two in the Pittsburgh suburbs — including those in the western suburbs where Ruscitto is running against incumbent Devlin Robinson. Robinson, a Marine Corps veteran and businessman, fired a Democratic officeholder four years ago and immediately signed a letter, along with many of his colleagues, encouraging top Republicans in Congress to delay the certification of Pennsylvania’s election results as part of Trump’s disproven campaign of election denial.
Ruscitto hopes her emphasis on issues surrounding cost of living and personal experience as a teacher, as well as the attacks on Robinson for voting for a constitutional amendment that could be used to curb access to abortion, will give her an edge.
“We have the lowest minimum wage, and it’s sitting in our Senate, and it’s not going to pass. And I find that absurd,” she said.
District residents say Robinson has stepped up his outreach to voters as Election Day approaches. Joyce Reinoso, a retired teacher and campaigner for candidates who support organized labor and public education, said he also has the power of the incumbent.
“I don’t care which party, it’s always harder to beat the incumbent because of name recognition, anyway,” she said.
The Ruscitto campaign’s internal polling shows her ahead of Robinson by just two percentage points, within the margin of error of their survey. This week, the University of Virginia political center rated the Pennsylvania House as a toss-up but said the Republican Party has an edge in retaining the Senate.
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In Bethel Park, which was briefly thrust into the national spotlight in July when a city man tried to kill the former president, houses with Trump signs and flags line the street from those supporting Harris, and the advertisements of the two candidates are shown. ubiquitous online and on television. But signs for Ruscitto and Robinson are relatively scarce, as are strong opinions.
As she sat down for an early dinner at Ma and Pop’s Country Kitchen, Sandy Messiner, a retired accountant, expressed no reservations about voting for Trump again.
“If Trump steps in, my investments will increase. We need a businessman to run this country,” the 70-year-old said. And even though she knew less about it, she planned to vote for all the other Republicans.
“I don’t care who comes in as long as they’re Republicans.”
On the other side of the counter sat Pam Cirucci, an 83-year-old retired nurse who was certain she wouldn’t vote for Trump because “he has no respect for women.”
As a former Republican, Cirucci was less concerned about who controlled the Legislature — or what Harrisburg lawmakers were up to in the first place.
“There are so many things that are more important,” she said.
