Like many Dems, we’re waiting with bated breath to see which wackadoodle Republican ends up facing off against John Fetterman in the Keystone State’s Senate race. But regardless, Pennsylvania will be a classic “quadruple-word-score” for Dem donors in 2022 — besides the up-for-grabs Senate seat, the Governor’s mansion is in play, the state legislature is on the DLCC’s “path to majority” target list, and there are several U.S. House races that will go down to the wire. And donating to any of them will likely yield benefits up and down the ballot.
With that in mind, we ran the Congressional numbers on Pennsylvania, which lost one R-leaning seat due to redistricting. Many pundits are only identifying a handful of the state’s 17 districts as competitive, but we have a more expansive view based on our modeling.
This post summarizes the results of our analysis; full details are in a post on our Github site.
The TL;DR is that we recommend supporting Dems in 6 key House districts in Pennsylvania: 3 are incumbents who need help on defense, 2 are highly plausible red-to-blue flips, and 1 is an open (currently D) seat that needs Dem donors’ support to retain it.
Quick interlude #1 — reminder of our methods: We’ve developed and refined a demographic model to project the intrinsic Democratic lean in each new district based on its makeup in terms of race, sex, education, and population density. When we put those demographics together with what we know about partisan lean and turnout, we think our model gives a more realistic forward-looking view than the “historical model” (which looks at past voting history) of what Dem donors could conceivably achieve if we’re smart about where to deploy our resources and energy. Read the Github post (link above) for in-the-weeds details.
Quick interlude #2 — plug for our prior analyses: Check out our other Dem donation recommendations for November by following this link to posts tagged ‘2022’. We’ve already analyzed several other states, including NC, TX, and AZ, and most of them already have active ActBlue slates for easy-peasy donation!
And now, back to our new analysis: Here’s a summary of the 6 Pennsylvania districts we think are highest-priority Dem donation opportunities:
PA-1: Although the lines for this southeastern district didn’t change much due to redistricting, we think the incumbent Republican, who has won handily in his past several races, is more vulnerable than advertised. Political newbie Ashley Ehasz, a former Army pilot, ran unopposed in the Dem primary, and we think she has a shot in this purple district if Dem donors can help boost her fundraising.
PA-6: Incumbent Dem Chrissy Houlahan won’t see much change in her district’s boundaries in 2022, but we’re concerned its makeup is much more balanced than it looks, and it’s on the NRCC’s blue-to-red target list. She’ll need Dem donor support in her race against an apparently moderate Republican (yes, they still exist!).
PA-7: Incumbent Dem Susan Wild is facing a rematch against the GOP challenger who came within 3 points of ousting her in 2020. The new lines make this eastern district slightly more R-leaning, so Wild needs our support to hang on to her seat this fall.
PA-8: Democrat Matt Cartwright narrowly bested a Trumpy challenger in 2020 who’s back on the ballot this fall. The district lines are virtually unchanged, so we are concerned that Cartwright’s hold on this Scranton-area seat is at risk without Dem donor support.
PA-10: Dems came within 5 points of flipping this central PA district last cycle, and our model supports the idea that the underlying demographics are a toss-up. Dem Shamaine Daniels, a Latina immigration lawyer who’s served on the Harrisburg city council since 2013, is well-qualified to oust incumbent Republican Scott Perry, who played a key role in efforts to overturn the 2020 results.
PA-17: This open Pittsburgh-area seat is currently represented by Democrat Conor Lamb, who opted instead for a (failed) try for the Senate. The GOP nominee is making a second go of it after losing to Lamb by just 3 points in 2020, and we think Dem nominee Chris Deluzio, an expert in voter security and integrity issues, will need donors’ help to beat him back in this purple district.
| DISTRICT | OUR MODEL | HISTORICAL MODEL | NOTES/ANALYSIS |
| PA-1 | 50% Dem | 53% Dem | Flippable by Dems. |
| PA-6 | 52% Dem | 56% Dem | Dem incumbent appears vulnerable. |
| PA-7 | 49% Dem | 51% Dem | Dem incumbent appears vulnerable. |
| PA-8 | 41% Dem | 51% Dem | Dem incumbent appears highly vulnerable. |
| PA-10 | 47% Dem | 48% Dem | Flippable by Dems. |
| PA-17 | 50% Dem | 55% Dem | Toss-up (open, currently D). |
We’ve made a handy ActBlue link for you to donate to all 6 of these Dem candidates in one fell swoop — just click the button below!
Also, please read our full Pennsylvania analysis on GitHub — you’ll go beyond the summary presented here and see lots of cool data, charts, and commentary, as well as more details on our methods. Plus, our complete archive of 2022 donation recommendation posts is here.
And finally, stay in touch by signing up for our email updates (see below) … we have more analyses in the pipeline to you get the most bang-for-buck out of your donations to Team Blue in 2022!