Pa. special election in swing county could influence legislature and offer suburban clues

BUCKS COUNTY, Pa. -- Voters in a competitive slice of Philadelphia's northern suburbs on Tuesday will help decide control of Pennsylvania's House of Representatives state delegation, possibly providing clues about the attitudes of suburban voters ahead of November's presidential election.

The special election to replace a former Democratic lawmaker in the 140th state House district, with its nearly 50,000 voters, is the first significant vote in the swing state this year, and it comes in closely watched Bucks County, a large suburban area where slim electoral margins are the norm, although the district itself is more Democratic than the county overall.

Republican Candace Cabanas, who has worked in health care and hospitality, is running against Democrat Jim Prokopiak, a lawyer and member of the Pennsbury school board.

Democrats currently hold a one-seat majority in the Pennsylvania House, an advantage gained just last week when Republican state Rep. Joe Adams resigned. A special election for Adams' seat, in a part of the state that has voted heavily for Republicans in recent cycles, will occur on April 23.

Democrats currently control the governorship and the state Senate, as well as the House.

Donald Trump famously won the state in 2016 -- the first time it had voted for a Republican presidential candidate in decades -- and Joe Biden narrowly won it over him in 2020.

In interviews with ABC News, both Cabanas and Prokopiak emphasized their focus on local issues in an attempt to stay removed from national politics and the relatively unpopular candidates likely to lead their parties' tickets in November, President Biden and former President Trump.

The state candidates say that focus is in response to what voters want.

"At many of the doors, the presidential race doesn't really come up," Prokopiak said.

"Mostly it's the inflation and school district stuff, taxes," Cabanas said of the topics voters bring up most as she campaigns.

While voters in the district did bring up local issues in conversations with ABC News, some also cited their feelings about the presidential candidates as a reason for voting.

Meanwhile, Prokopiak and the Democrats are keeping a focus on abortion access, arguing that Cabanas would support a ballot amendment restricting the procedure if Republicans were to eventually win control of the Pennsylvania House.

Such an amendment would require the support of a simple majority of the chamber.

Cabanas dismissed those concerns.

"The people get to decide," she said. "Most people do think there should be abortion in some capacity, and I think -- we're the legislators that answer to the people. Our government is by the people, for the people. They get to tell us where the line is. I don't get to tell them."

Democrats are investing heavily to keep control of the seat, with the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, a national group that helps elect Democrats to state Legislatures, spending tens of thousands of dollars to support Prokopiak, believing that Tuesday's results will help them understand voter sentiment in Bucks County, where party registration was split almost evenly as of late November.

The race could "give a sense of kind of what the playing field may look like as we look to November," Heather Williams, president of the DLCC told ABC News.

The makeup of the 140th District appears to give Prokopiak an edge.

Biden and Sen. John Fetterman each won the district by double digits in 2020 and 2022, respectively. However, a Republican fourth-term congressman, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, took the district by three points in 2022.

"Brian appeals to this group, and that's what we believe Candace also does," Patricia Poprik, the Bucks County Republican chair, told ABC News, attempting to explain Fitzpatrick's success in a district where other Republicans have struggled. "It's people that are moms, they're working hard and doing their thing."

On Tuesday morning, weather was adding an unexpected element to the race, as a winter storm blew through northeastern Pennsylvania.

"There's very, very light foot traffic here at the polls today," Cabanas said from a polling site -- a reason, she argued, that she encouraged her supporters to embrace mail-in voting, which some Republicans have falsely argued caused widespread voting fraud in 2020.

"We were really talking to a lot of people about getting their mail-in ballots, why it's important. And a day like today is a perfect example why. We have a lot of snow on the ground," she said.