Pennsylvania primaries 2024: Lee and Fitzpatrick survive, matchups set for November

538 tracked congressional and downballot primary races in the Keystone State.

Pennsylvania is already in the thick of campaign season for November's presidential and U.S. Senate races, but on April 23, Democrats and Republicans in the Keystone State chose their candidates in a slate of other consequential races down the ballot this fall.

Among the key races to watch: a couple of incumbent House members — progressive Democrat Summer Lee and moderate Republican Brian Fitzpatrick — both fended off challengers from their right, and ballots are now set for a few other consequential contests that could help determine control of the House next year. Plus, some key battle lines for control of the state government in November are set, with the parties finalizing their candidates for attorney general, auditor, treasurer and both chambers of the state legislature.

538 reporters and contributors broke down the election results as they came in with live updates, analysis and commentary. Read our full live blog below.


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Lee leads after initial batch of returns from Allegheny County

In the 12th District Democratic primary, incumbent Lee leads challenger Patel 55 percent to 45 percent after Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) reported a big chunk of early votes just after polls closed. On the one hand, this shows Patel isn't that far behind Lee and could be in the race. On the other hand, Lee actually lost the mail/early vote in the 2022 primary here when she first won this seat, 51 percent to 31 percent, but this time around she leads it. And since about 90 percent of the primary vote will come from Allegheny (the rest from Westmoreland next door), Lee has to be seen as a favorite at this point.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538


And we’ve got some preliminary results from Bucks County!

In the 1st District, GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick is well ahead of his challenger from the right, anti-abortion activist Mark Houck. With 20 percent of the expected vote reporting, Fitzpatrick has 83 percent to Houck’s 17 percent. In fact, the Associated Press has already called this race and projected Fitzpatrick to win. ABC News, however, has yet to make a projection, so hang tight!

—Kaleigh Rogers, 538


Pennsylvania voters are focused on the economy

In Pennsylvania, as in many states around the country, voters name the economy as the most important issue facing the state. In a mid-March Emerson College/The Hill survey, 36 percent of respondents said "the economy (jobs, inflation, taxes)" was the most important issue facing Pennsylvania. The next most chosen issue was crime (12 percent), followed by immigration and "threats to democracy" (11 percent each) and healthcare (9 percent).

Republicans were particularly concerned about the economy and immigration, with 47 and 21 percent selecting those two issues, respectively, and no other issue chosen by more than 9 percent of Republican voters. Democrats also selected the economy first, but with less gusto: 27 percent said the economy is the most important issue, followed by threats to democracy (16 percent), healthcare (15 percent) and crime (13 percent).

—Mary Radcliffe, 538


Where are the female Republican candidates?

Today's House primaries in Pennsylvania feature a dearth of Republican women: Of the 19 GOP candidates running today, just two are women. To get a sense of how lopsided this is, as we saw earlier, 12 out of the 25 candidates running for the U.S. House on the Democratic side are women.

Since about the mid-1990s, Democrats have been electing more women to Congress than Republicans, due in large part to more Democratic women running. That said, in both the 2020 and 2022 cycles, more Republican women ran in primaries than ever before. But what's more important to electing more women is where women are running, and if they are competing in places they can win in November.

In Pennsylvania's 5th District, Alfeia Goodwin is the only Republican candidate on the ballot, so in that sense she's set up to succeed in her primary! However, in November she'll face incumbent Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, who handily won reelection in 2022 and is almost certain to hold the safe blue district. This race illustrates the "sacrificial lamb" phenomenon where a candidate runs unopposed in the primary for a losing seat. There's from political science that Republican women are sacrificial lamb nominees more often than Democratic women.

Things are more interesting in the 7th District race Kaleigh just previewed, where the Democratic incumbent, Rep. Susan Wild, barely eked out a win in 2022 against a female Republican nominee, Lisa Scheller. Scheller isn't running for the GOP nomination this cycle, but another woman, attorney Maria Montero, is on the ballot today against state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie and Kevin Dellicker, a veteran and cybersecurity business owner.

Although this is a seat Republicans are targeting in November, Trump hasn't endorsed anyone in the primary race. But a Trump surrogate, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, has been . She hasn't received an endorsement from any of the GOP women's groups we are tracking (VIEW PAC, Maggie's List, E-Pac, and Winning for Women). That said, E-Pac, which was started by Trump acolyte Rep. Elise Stefanik, hasn't made any primary endorsements this cycle, despite its stated mission to elevate women in primaries.

—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor


A crowd of Democrats vying to challenge hard-right Republican Scott Perry in Pennsylvania's 10th District

In the Harrisburg-based 10th District, Republican Rep. Scott Perry won reelection by a little less than 8 percentage points in 2022. But he remains a target for Democrats, thanks to the district's potential competitiveness and Perry's reputation as an archconservative. A crowd of six contenders have entered the Democratic primary to earn the right to face Perry in November, and there's some degree of uncertainty about how this primary might play out.

If there's a front-runner, it's probably former news anchor Janelle Stelson, whose long tenure at WGAL in the Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York TV market has made her a familiar face in the region. Stelson had raised $577,000 as of April 3, and she has endorsements from EMILY's List and the business-friendly New Democratic Action Fund. However, Stelson has competition in retired Marine fighter pilot Mike O'Brien, who has slightly outraised Stelson by bringing in $736,000. The other candidate of note is Harrisburg City Council member Shamaine Daniels, the party's 2022 nominee against Perry, although she's only raised $73,000.

But both Stelson and O'Brien have faced questions about their ties to the district, as Stelson lives just outside it in Lancaster County and O'Brien only recently moved to the area. Stelson has also faced scrutiny for having only recently switched her party registration from Republican to Democrat and for having made a racist joke on air around a decade ago involving Asians eating cats. Whether that's enough to derail her remains to be seen: The only recent poll we've seen was a late February survey for Stelson's campaign by Normington, Petts & Associates that found her leading with 36 percent, followed by Daniels at 16 percent and O'Brien at 9 percent.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538