With enough delegates to guarantee the nomination of their respective parties, Donald Trump and Joe Biden had a smooth night in the Pennsylvania primaries. With the presidential nomination decided, all eyes were on Democratic Representative and "The Squad" member Summer Lee, who achieved a resounding victory in the 12th district and will compete to renew her seat in November. On the Republican side, Brian Fitzpatrick will also fight to maintain his seat in the House after defeating Mark Houck, while the rest of the races featuring more than one candidate ended with closer results.
With the presidential and Senate candidacies decided in both parties, the candidates for the House of Representatives were the main point of attention. With the 17 incumbent representatives trying to defend their seats, radical Rep. Summer Lee was one of the highlights, to see if her anti-Israel stance would hurt her at the polls. The Squad member easily earned the nomination (60.6%), defeating moderate Democrat Bhavini Patel. Also on the Democratic side, former news anchor Janelle Stelson beat out five other candidates and will try to take the seat from Republican Scott Perry in November.
Pennsylvania Senate seat key to majority in November
Among the Republicans, in addition to the Fitzpatrick's resounding victory (61.4%), Ryan McKenzie obtained 42.6% of the support from conservative voters in the seventh district to challenge Democrat Susan Wild, one of the seats considered to be at risk for the Democratic Party. In addition to Wild's, the GOP considers that it can flip the eighth district (Matt Cartwright) and the 17th (Chris Deluzio).
In presidential primary, Joe Biden obtained 93.1% of the votes, while Rep. Dean Phillips, despite having withdrawn from the race and endorsing Biden, gathered 6.9%. Among the conservatives, Nikky Haley, despite her withdrawal, took more than 15% of the votes from Trump (83.5%), who also had a smooth ride to continue to add delegates.
Although the Senate seat up for grabs in November promises to be one of the most contested of the election, nothing was decided during the primaries, since neither Democrat Bob Casey nor Republican Dave McCormick had a rival within their parties. Casey, who will try to earn his fourth term, holds a slight lead over McCormick in the polls, making it one of the seats that the GOP has marked in red to try to reverse the current Democratic majority in the Senate.
