PA-St. House: Legislative Chamber to Watch

Reasonable minds can disagree on what the single most important state legislature this November is going to be, whether it’s from the perspective of affecting redistricting or just from good governance, and whether it’s from the perspective of trying to pin down a Democratic trifecta or prevent a Republican trifecta. If you’d said it was trying to take over the Texas state House, in order to keep the GOP from having a lock on the Lone Star State and forcing something of a compromise map, I’d say that was a great pick. And if you’d said defending the New York state Senate, that’s a great pick too, as controlling the trifecta there going into 2012 will result in a much better congressional map. Holding the Ohio Assembly, picking up the Michigan Senate, or even focusing on California to push those chambers past the 2/3s mark to overcome that state’s ridiculous budget requirements; those are all great too.

But, at least for now, I’ve settled on the Keystone State’s House as the key legislative chamber. With the state Senate not in a position to flip away from GOP control this year, and with the distinct likelihood of losing the gubernatorial race (if nothing else, given the state’s well-documented eight-year itch), holding the state House is the Dems’ last line of defense in the redistricting trifecta, and the best way to make sure that a compromise map is on the table for 2012. Not that the 2002 map worked out that well for the GOP — it turned out to be something of a dummymander that fell apart when a strong wind blew the other direction — but we obviously don’t want to take the chance that they might get it more right next time.

With three vacancies having been just filled via special elections on Primary Day, the Democrats currently control the House by a 104-97 margin. That’s better than the previous 07-08 cycle, where the Dems had a 102-101 edge, but still one where a stiff wind could blow control back in to GOP hands, seeing as how they need to flip only four seats to take control. (You might notice that, at 203 members, this is one of the nation’s largest legislative bodies, although they’ve still got nothing on the New Hampshire House. Constituencies are only about 60,000 residents each, meaning that the races are usually low-dollar affairs dominated by the ground game instead, and by the machines, where they’re present.)

With the primaries having wrapped up, we also have the matchups set in place for November. In addition to that generic stiff wind, here’s one other way Dems are at a disadvantage this cycle: they have a lot more open seats to defend than do the Republicans. Rather than give you one giant table of every single district, I’m going to break them down by category. Most districts aren’t even going to get discussed, seeing as how nearly half of all races — 39 Democratic seats and 46 Republican seats — aren’t being contested by a major party, and how nearly two-thirds of all seats fall outside what I think of as “swing district” territory, i.e. with a Cook PVI between D+5 and R+5. (If you’re wondering how I calculated PVI at this level, Pennsylvania has made available both 2004 and 2008 presidential data for all precincts, so thanks to jeffmd we were able to calculate percentages for all its legislative districts.)

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
107	Open (Belfanti)	R+5	46/52	45/54	100/0	Columbia Montour Northumberland
137	Open (Grucela)	R+3	51/48	45/53	100/0	Northampton
122	Open (McCall)	R+1	50/48	49/50	64/36	Carbon
48	Open (Solobay)	R+1	49/49	51/49	100/0	Washington
156	Open (Smith)	D+2	56/43	50/49	53/47	Chester
114	Open (Wansacz)	D+3	56/42	50/48	100/0	Lackawanna Luzerne Susquehanna Wyoming
119	Open (Yudichak)	D+5	56/42	55/43	100/0	Luzerne
77	Open (Conklin)	D+6	60/38	52/47	70/30	Centre
161	Open (Lentz)	D+6	57/41	55/44	55/45	Delaware
141	Open (Melio)	D+13	64/35	63/36	100/0	Bucks
194	Open (Manderino)	D+22	73/26	71/28	78/22	Montgomery Philadelphia
195	Open (Oliver)	D+42	93/7	92/8	91/9	Philadelphia

We’ll discuss Republican open seats below the fold, but there are only six of them, compared with twelve Dem seats. There are two bits of good news, though: two of those GOP open seats are in blue districts, compared with four here in Republican-leaning turf, so there may be some offsetting. And more importantly, three of these R+ seats here are in old-school rural Dem areas where there seems to be a sizable Democratic registration advantage, so similar to the PA-12 special election, a conservative Dem might be able to take advantage of the historic Democratic dominance at the local level even as the areas trend away at the national level.

HD-48 is very much a case in point; in fact, it’s in Washington County to the south of Pittsburgh, one of the hearts of PA-12, and its 49/49 split in 2008 and 51/49 split in 2004 very closely mirrors how the 12th (the only Kerry/McCain district in the nation, as you’ve no doubt heard) as a whole broke down. In HD-48, there were 7,488 votes for the various Dems in the primary, while there were 4,461 Republican votes. In addition, in two seats in northeastern coal country, HD-107 had 5,818 Democratic votes for the various candidates in the primary, while there were 4,088 Republican votes, and HD-122 had 6,166 Dem votes and 3,855 GOP votes. The exception among the four is HD-137, which is a more suburban seat outside of Bethlehem in the Lehigh Valley; this area, like many southeastern suburbs, moved rapidly in the Dems’ direction at the presidential level between 04 and 08, but there’s still a historic Republican advantage at the county and legislative level. Even here, though, there were 3,847 Dem votes to 3,439 GOP primary votes.

Now let’s turn to seats that aren’t open, but where a Democrat is sitting in a Republican-leaning district.

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
83	Mirabito	R+12	42/57	36/63	57/42	Lycoming
56	Casorio	R+12	37/62	41/59	60/40	Westmoreland
125	Seip	R+11	42/57	38/61	56/44	Berks Schuylkill
76	Hanna	R+8	45/53	40/60	69/31	Centre Clinton
74	George	R+8	44/53	41/58	63/37	Clearfield
10	Gibbons	R+6	43/55	45/55	55/45	Beaver Butler Lawrence
54	Pallone	R+5	44/55	46/53	100/0	Armstrong Westmoreland
116	Eachus	R+5	46/52	45/54	100/0	Luzerne
55	Petrarca *	R+5	44/55	47/52	100/0	Armstrong Westmoreland
130	Kessler	R+4	49/49	43/56	56/44	Berks
46	White	R+3	45/53	49/51	63/37	Allegheny Beaver Washington
25	Markosek	R+3	47/52	48/52	100/0	Allegheny Westmoreland
72	Burns *	R+3	47/50	48/52	53/47	Cambria Somerset
13	Houghton	R+3	51/48	44/55	48/46	Chester
73	Haluska	R+2	48/50	48/51	100/0	Cambria
58	Harhai	R+2	46/53	51/49	100/0	Fayette Westmoreland
51	Mahoney *	R+2	47/51	49/50	67/0	Fayette
33	Dermody	R+2	47/52	50/49	51/49	Allegheny
71	Barbin	R+1	51/48	49/51	50/50	Cambria
52	Kula *	R+1	48/51	51/48	100/0	Fayette Westmoreland
39	Levdansky	R+1	48/51	52/48	53/47	Allegheny Washington

These are, I would expect, for the most part conservative Dems who are well suited to their districts in rural areas or Pittsburgh’s collar counties. Between that and disparities in party strength in some of these counties, most of them have been easily re-elected in the past (see their 2008 totals) or left unopposed. In fact, note that four of them are unopposed this year; these are the ones with asterisks next to their names. This even goes as far up as R+5, where Joe Petrarca drew a pass. (Before we start patting ourselves on the back too much, there are some even more glaring omissions in terms of Republicans going uncontested in blue seats, which we’ll get to later.) Also worth a note, some of the ones who are in swingier districts (like Barbin, Dermody, and Levdansky) were the ones with the really close races in 2008, and may, depending on the quality of their challengers this year, be in more trouble than the Dems in redder districts.

Let’s look at one more table of Democrats, this time ones who are in Democratic-leaning districts but who still had close races in 2008 (“close” meaning a less than 10% margin of victory).

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
151	Taylor	D+4	57/42	52/47	51/49	Montgomery
157	Drucker	D+4	57/42	52/48	51/49	Chester Montgomery
70	Bradford	D+5	59/40	53/47	51/49	Montgomery
113	Murphy	D+11	65/33	58/40	52/48	Lackawanna
31	Santarsiero	D+0	53/46	49/50	53/47	Bucks
50	DeWeese	D+3	52/46	55/44	54/46	Fayette Greene Washington

Note that this is a very different batch of counties than the ones in the R+ districts. Most of these Dems are in Philadelphia’s suburbs and were either elected for the first time in either 2008 or 2006, so they’re still getting entrenched in counties where, if you look below the presidential toplines, there are still a lot of historic and organizational advantages for the Republicans. These seats will be a big test of whether these counties continue their decade-long demographic-driven march toward the Democrats, or if the national environment reverses that trend. There’s also one seat here that doesn’t really match: the district of former Speaker Mike Bill DeWeese, in the state’s southwestern corner. DeWeese is an old-timer (in office since 1976) who’s gotten badly tarred with the Bonusgate brush, which probably hurt his 2008 totals and has probably only made things worse lately. Residents of this district probably got saturated with tons of ads from the next-door WV-01 primary, so they too may be primed to be in the mood to rid themselves of a long-time but shady Rep.

Seats where Democrats are on the offense over the flip…

Now let’s look at the open seats currently held by Republicans.

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
164	Open (Civera)	D+13	66/33	60/39	0/100	Delaware
131	Open * (Beyer)	D+3	56/42	51/49	48/52	Lehigh Northampton
128	Open (Rohrer)	R+5	49/50	42/57	48/52	Berks
41	Open (True)	R+7	48/51	38/61	0/100	Lancaster
199	Open (Gabig)	R+12	42/56	35/64	35/65	Cumberland
85	Open (Fairchild)	R+13	41/57	34/65	30/70	Snyder Union
108	Open (Phillips)	R+16	38/61	31/68	23/77	Northumberland Snyder

Obviously, there are two big possibilities here, including a D+13 seat that leaves you to wonder what it was doing in GOP hands in the first place. (The answer: HD-164 has been the seat since 1980 of Mario Civera Jr., the ranking Republican on Appropriations, and it’s in Delaware County, which is a historic GOP stronghold that still has a strong local machine even though it’s gone blue at the presidential level.) The D+3 seat, HD-131, is in the suburbs of Allentown, and just became open when GOP incumbent Karen Beyer lost her primary. A little further down, Sam Rohrer (who vacated the seat for his long-shot gubernatorial bid) put up tepid numbers in his 2008 re-election, but that may have more to do with his bad fit with his district (which is the nicer suburbs of Reading, typified by John Updike’s hometown of Shillington, not prime theo-con turf) than this district’s readiness to elect any Democrat.

Here’s the list of the Republicans who are sitting in blue districts. And, as promised, it has some races that went uncontested (marked by asterisks) that will have you wanting to pound your head into the desk…

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
177	Taylor *	D+15	66/33	65/34	41/59	Philadelphia
18	DiGirolamo *	D+8	58/40	58/41	33/67	Bucks
162	Miccarelli	D+8	59/40	58/41	43/57	Delaware
163	Micozzie	D+7	59/39	57/42	41/59	Delaware
176	Scavello *	D+7	62/38	53/46	0/100	Monroe
146	Quigley	D+5	59/40	52/48	47/53	Montgomery
150	Vereb	D+5	58/41	53/47	43/57	Montgomery
61	Harper	D+4	57/43	52/48	44/56	Montgomery
152	Murt	D+3	55/44	53/47	40/60	Montgomery Philadelphia
169	O’Brien *	D+3	53/46	55/44	0/100	Philadelphia
142	Farry	D+3	54/45	53/47	48/52	Bucks
172	Perzel	D+2	52/47	53/46	34/66	Philadelphia
158	Ross	D+1	55/44	48/52	0/100	Chester
167	Milne	D+0	54/45	48/51	44/56	Chester
26	Hennessey	D+0	55/44	47/52	48/52	Chester
14	Marshall	D+0	50/48	52/48	41/59	Beaver
183	Harhart *	D+0	53/46	49/50	0/87	Lehigh Northampton

So… just to recap, Dems failed to put forth a candidate in a D+15 district in Philadelphia (as well as a D+8 district in lower Bucks County and a D+7 one in the Poconos). Granted, this is in NE Philadelphia, the middle-class old-school white-ethnic part of town where there’s some residual Republican organizational strength, probably left over from the Frank Rizzo area (as seen not just by Taylor’s 59-41 win in 2008 but by the continued presence in the House of his neighbors, former Speakers Mike Dennis O’Brien — also uncontested this year — and John Perzel). Still… that free pass is just lame. At any rate, Perzel, even though he might have the least-blue district in Philly, may actually be the most vulnerable GOP incumbent, if only by virtue of being the most public face of the lingering legislative pay raise debacle that left both parties looking bad.

Finally, here is a handful of Republicans who are from Republican-leaning districts who still managed to have close (i.e. less than 10% margin) races in 2008, who weren’t already accounted for in the blue-district list.

District	Rep.	PVI	Obama/ McCain %	Kerry/ Bush %	’08 House D/R %	Location
15	Christiana	R+4	44/54	48/51	49/51	Beaver
57	Krieger	R+10	40/58	41/58	48/52	Westmoreland
187	Day	R+7	47/51	40/59	48/52	Berks Lehigh
75	Gabler	R+7	46/52	41/58	47/53	Clearfield Elk

While I don’t presume to know enough about the local dynamics of these dozens of different races to the extent that I can predict outcomes, the disparities in number of open seats, and numbers of Dems in R+ seats vs. numbers of GOPers in D+ seats, suggest that the Republicans will be picking up seats here, although maybe not the net four flips needed to control the House. The real question seems to be how much these races get nationalized, and whether a favorable Republican year in general translates down to districts where there’s a historic Dem advantage (in the southwestern collar counties) or where demographics are moving in a Dem-favorable direction even while the local machinery remains in GOP hands (in the southeastern suburbs). The failure by the GOP to successfully nationalize the PA-12 special election is a good portent, but we’ll have to watch carefully.

UPDATE: By popular request, here’s the entire dataset as a Google Doc.