2018: PA Gov Predictions + Thoughts

[Spark]

Post your current predictions

[Dr. Arch]

D Hold, favorable environment and Wolf is a good governor.

[Orser67]

Gubernatorial race should be an easy hold in a Trump mid-term. Also Wolf seems reasonably popular and PA almost never turns out incumbent governors (aside from Wolf's immediate predecessor, of course).

Republicans hold a 34-16 majority in the state senate and I doubt Democrats could take it back (though I'm not deeply familiar with the state legislative districts). My understanding is that the state house, with a 121-82 majority, could flip in a good year for Democrats.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

D hold.

Tom Wolf *i (D): 53%
Scott Wagner (R): 46%

Wolf is a popular governor and he's running in an anti-Trump year. In Pennsylvania, we tend to be favorable towards incumbents (Pat Toomey, Sallie Mundy). BUT, Incumbents have to be very unpopular in order for them to be unseated.
EX: Rick Santorum (2006) Arlen Specter (2010) Tom Corbett (2014)

[Sir Mohamed]

Wolf may have been in trouble with President Clinton, but I don't see him losing in 2018.

✓ Tom Wolf (D, inc.): 52.8%
Scott Wagner: 47.1%

[America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗]

Wolf may have been in trouble with President Clinton, but I don't see him losing in 2018.

✓ Tom Wolf (D, inc.): 52.8%
Scott Wagner: 47.1%

Probably this.

[Del Tachi]

Wolf may have been in trouble with President Clinton, but I don't see him losing in 2018.

✓ Tom Wolf (D, inc.): 52.8%
Scott Wagner: 47.1%

Probably this.

Except third party candidates only receiving 0.1% of the vote?

[JMT]

I agree that Wolf will win a second term. But is Scott Wagner really the Republican's best candidate? I would think Republicans would get a bigger recruit for this race

[KingSweden]

Wolf should be re-elected fairly comfortably. Democrats narrow deficits in the state leg

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Likely D if Wagner is the opposition, but Toss-Up if the State House Speaker or Fmr. Lt. Gov. Cawley enters the race.

[President Johnson]

Tom Corbett 2018!

Wolf may have been in trouble with President Clinton, but I don't see him losing in 2018.

✓ Tom Wolf (D, inc.): 52.8%
Scott Wagner: 47.1%

Probably this.

Except third party candidates only receiving 0.1% of the vote?

In 2010 and 2014, there were only the two main candidates in the ballot.

I think Wolf will equal or outperform 2014 against Wagner. About 55-45%. Likely D.

[Vega]

I initially thought Wagner was just the token far right candidate who would lose to Cawley or someone less extreme and with less baggage, but since it appears he'll actually be the nominee, I have to say that it's a solid Likely Dem race. Wolf likely would have been in more trouble if it was a Clinton midterm.

[IceSpear]

Wolf will likely win re-election. Margin depends on the political environment and quality of the challenger.

[IceSpear]

Tom Corbett 2018!

what the christ

He's had a weird obsession with Corbett since 2014 for some reason. Apparently it has remained consistent.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

So I visited Scott Wagner's website and in a blog post he talks about openly embracing Steve Bannon and calls liberals "unglued."
This guy is doing all of this in a state that barely voted Republican in the last election and still (in my opinion) leans blue. He's setting himself up for failure. If the GOP nominates him, which is likely, then Wolf will cruise to reelection.

The only alternative for the GOP is Paul Mango who seems like a half-decent guy but he polls 30 points behind Wagner in the primary.

Fun Fact: I actually spotted a huge "Paul Mango for Governor" banner on an abandoned mill as I was taking the shuttle into Pittsburgh this morning.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

52-46 Wolf wins.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Just found on Facebook from June 5th that Jeff Bartos, Scott Wagner's running mate, accused Larry Krasner of winning his District Attorney race using funds from George Soros. This guy, Wagner, AND Lou Barletta are all running. They're bringing 4chan and Reddit to life in Pennsylvania. The Trumplican trifecta. PA is going to go hard blue in 2018. What a clown show.

[Suburbia]

Just found on Facebook from June 5th that Jeff Bartos, Scott Wagner's running mate, accused Larry Krasner of winning his District Attorney race using funds from George Soros. This guy, Wagner, AND Lou Barletta are all running. They're bringing 4chan and Reddit to life in Pennsylvania. The Trumplican trifecta. PA is going to go hard blue in 2018. What a clown show.

Are you sure? I see PA-GOV 2018 as Tilt D/Tossup.

North Philly could go to Wagner.

[IceSpear]

Just found on Facebook from June 5th that Jeff Bartos, Scott Wagner's running mate, accused Larry Krasner of winning his District Attorney race using funds from George Soros. This guy, Wagner, AND Lou Barletta are all running. They're bringing 4chan and Reddit to life in Pennsylvania. The Trumplican trifecta. PA is going to go hard blue in 2018. What a clown show.

No, no. PA voted for Trump by 0.7%, therefore it is now a safe R state. Obama winning by 11 meant nothing though.

[Xing]

Just found on Facebook from June 5th that Jeff Bartos, Scott Wagner's running mate, accused Larry Krasner of winning his District Attorney race using funds from George Soros. This guy, Wagner, AND Lou Barletta are all running. They're bringing 4chan and Reddit to life in Pennsylvania. The Trumplican trifecta. PA is going to go hard blue in 2018. What a clown show.

No, no. PA voted for Trump by 0.7%, therefore it is now a safe R state. Obama winning by 11 meant nothing though.

PA, MI, and WI are all New West Virginias, didn't you hear?

Anyway, Wolf should win by mid-single digits or so, unless he runs a very poor campaign.

[IceSpear]

Just found on Facebook from June 5th that Jeff Bartos, Scott Wagner's running mate, accused Larry Krasner of winning his District Attorney race using funds from George Soros. This guy, Wagner, AND Lou Barletta are all running. They're bringing 4chan and Reddit to life in Pennsylvania. The Trumplican trifecta. PA is going to go hard blue in 2018. What a clown show.

No, no. PA voted for Trump by 0.7%, therefore it is now a safe R state. Obama winning by 11 meant nothing though.

PA, MI, and WI are all New West Virginias, didn't you hear?

Anyway, Wolf should win by mid-single digits or so, unless he runs a very poor campaign.

PA/WI/MI are the new Democratic at heart states that only vote Republican by 40 points because reasons and will surely flip back to their roots any day now? - RINO Tom

[Tartarus Sauce]

Gubernatorial race should be an easy hold in a Trump mid-term. Also Wolf seems reasonably popular and PA almost never turns out incumbent governors (aside from Wolf's immediate predecessor, of course).

Republicans hold a 34-16 majority in the state senate and I doubt Democrats could take it back (though I'm not deeply familiar with the state legislative districts). My understanding is that the state house, with a 121-82 majority, could flip in a good year for Democrats.

They could take back both. They would need to pickup 10 seats to flip control, and although I don't have the vote breakdown by district from the past presidential election in front of me, I can tell just by eyeballing the map that Democrats have a pretty good shot of taking back at least 10 seats in a wave. All 7 of the remaining Republican senate seats in the Philadelphia metro are vulnerable and 6 of them are up in 2018. The Allentown and State College districts are also up in 2018. Then in 2020, Democrats could target the one Philly metro seat that wasn't up in 2018 as well as try to retake the Erie seat in the northwest. That's ten right there by 2020, although that would be only just exactly enough to flip the chamber; maybe they'll be able to snag some other surprises along the way to pad their margins. Still, I don't think they will win the PA Senate until 2020, if they do at all.

A massive number of Republican seats are up in the PA House next year in the Philly suburbs, and they are bound for the same course correction we saw in the Virginia HoD this year where the local electorates stopped ticket splitting down the ballot and started voting more Democratic. We already saw a preview of this in the gains Democrats made in the Chester County and Delaware County races almost two weeks ago. By my count, about 28 or so seats in the PA House are Republican incumbents located in the five-county SEPA region, and the vast majority of those are toast in an anti-Trump wave like what we saw on the 7th. Democrats could easily get the 20 seats they need---and then some--- to flip the lower chamber just out of SEPA districts alone.

[Virginiá]

They could take back both. They would need to pickup 10 seats to flip control, and although I don't have the vote breakdown by district from the past presidential election in front of me, I can tell just by eyeballing the map that Democrats have a pretty good shot of taking back at least 10 seats in a wave. All 7 of the remaining Republican senate seats in the Philadelphia metro are vulnerable and 6 of them are up in 2018. The Allentown and State College districts are also up in 2018. Then in 2020, Democrats could target the one Philly metro seat that wasn't up in 2018 as well as try to retake the Erie seat in the northwest. That's ten right there by 2020, although that would be only just exactly enough to flip the chamber; maybe they'll be able to snag some other surprises along the way to pad their margins. Still, I don't think they will win the PA Senate until 2020, if they do at all.

Regaining legislative power is going to have to be a long-term project for Pennsylvania Democrats for sure. The good news here is that the 2020s should see fair maps (or Dem gerrymanders). A Democratic state Supreme Court majority means legislative redistricting commission will likely break for the Democrats' maps in 2021, so that actually means whatever maps Democrats want (fair or not fair). The only plausible way I think this can change is if either Republicans get voters to approve a constitutional amendment giving the legislature sole power over redistricting, and even then, there is no guarantee they don't lose a chamber by 2020.

Of course, I don't think any of this really matters if Wolf wins reelection and vetoes unfair maps.

[Spark]

Post thoughts or maps for:

Wolf vs Wagner
Wolf vs Turzai
Wolf vs Mango

[BuckeyeNut]

Just found on Facebook from June 5th that Jeff Bartos, Scott Wagner's running mate, accused Larry Krasner of winning his District Attorney race using funds from George Soros.

I'm a Krasner Bro but that's not a conspiracy theory at all.

Anyway, I'm more interested in the Dem. primary for LG - Go Fetterman!

I theoretically love Fetterman, but I hear the reason Bernie never endorsed him in 2016 is that Fetterman couldn't pass vetting. Watch him go down as another perpetrator of sexual assault/harrasement.