Elections at a Glance - #2
First published: Wednesday April 28th, 2021
Report this blog
Background
The Senate seat up for election in 2022 was most recently up for election in 2016, when incumbent one-term Republican Senator Patrick "Pat" Toomey defeated the Democratic nominee Kathleen "Katie" McGinty by a margin of just under 1.5%. This was in line with the Presidential victory of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania that year. However, just two years later, Incumbent Democrat Robert "Bob" Casey Jr. (These Pennsylvanians sure love nicknames, huh?) defeated Louis "Lou" Barletta by just over 13% in the race for the other Senate seat. However, in the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden won the state by just over 1 percent, making the state a likely toss-up going into 2022 before factoring in anything else. However, we must factor in other things.
On the 5th of October, 2020, just about a month before the 2022 presidential election, Pat Toomey announced that he would not be running for re-election in 2022, creating an open seat race. This moved the race from one that would likely be watched to one of the pre-eminent toss-up races of this election cycle.[1]
The Candidates
There are several candidates on either side. However, the Democrats have more of what would be considered "major candidates".
On the Republican side, there are few major candidates. The three that have received significant media attention are listed below.[2]
Kathy Barnette is a veteran and commentator, as well as the nominee for Pennsylvania's 4th Congressional District in 2020.
Jeff Bartos is a businessman, and was the nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania in 2018.[3]
Everett Stern is a whistleblower and businessman who challenged Pat Toomey in the Republican primary in 2016.
There are no fewer than 8 current candidates in the Democratic primary.[1] However, there are three that have achieved some sort of news coverage. I will cover these three.[4]
John Fetterman is a politician. He was a candidate for the nomination for this seat in 2016. He was also Mayor of Braddock from 2005 to 2019, and the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania from 2019 until now.[5]
Malcolm Kenyatta is a state representative, and has held that position since 2019.
Sharif Street is a state senator, and is the Vice Chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
In addition, two U.S. Representatives, Chrissy Houlahan and Conor Lamb, have indicated their interest in this position.
The Verdict
As of April 27, 2021, all three major political rating firms (the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, and Sabato's Crystal Ball) rate this race as some sort of battleground.[6][7][8] This could change as the race progresses, but the outcome of this race is anything but certain.
Sources
The Sources are denoted by a number within brackets.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Senate_election_in_Pennsylvania
[2] - https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/24/jeff-bartos-super-pac-pennsylvania-race-484531
[3] - https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/10/politics/pennsylvania-senate-democratic-primary/index.html
[4] - https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_election_in_Pennsylvania,_2022
[5] - https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/04/why-is-next-years-pa-senate-race-getting-so-much-buzz-john-fetterman-is-only-one-reason-john-baer.html
[6] - https://cookpolitical.com/ratings/senate-race-ratings
[7] - https://insideelections.com/ratings/senate
[8] - https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2022-senate/
Thank you!
Thank you for reading this! If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, let me know, and I will do my best to respond. Thank you again!