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“The public doesn’t want extremists in government right now. It’s different here in Bucks County,” Prokopiak said in an interview.
It’s a strategy that has helped Democrats win recent elections, especially in battleground districts like Bucks County. Bucks County is a voting suburb of Philadelphia where moderate and independent voters are strongly supported by the presidential campaign. Here in Lower Bucks County, where vacant state House seats are being contested by an older, white, working-class population that mostly lacks degrees, the winner of Tuesday’s special election will be determined by the House’s partisan leanings. will be decided. Harrisburg was deadlocked 101-101.
This state election is Democrats across the country will actively work to tie Trump to Republicans in terms of votes. Democrats believe the party is to blame for Trump’s squeeze on Republicans and his almost certain return as a presidential candidate, especially in areas like Bucks County. Extremism, an umbrella term used by Democrats to include threats to abortion rights and democracy, has been a winning message for Democrats in recent elections, including the 2022 midterm elections that left President Trump in office. It still exerts great influence within the party.
“If I were a Democrat, I would tie whoever I was running against to Trump,” said Chris Borick, a veteran political pollster at Muhlenberg College.
Cabanas rejected the “MAGA” label and did not say whether he personally supported Trump, but said, “He will be the candidate, and I support and support him as a candidate.” I believe that it is our job within the party to do so.”Maybe to encourage him to find something really good [vice president] It might help balance him out a little bit. ”
Cabanas said her husband never knocked on Trump’s door, but he said he never knocked on Trump’s door. Her mailers and website make no mention of her being a Republican, and Cabanas focuses on issues she claims are the most pressing for struggling working families. I’m trying to continue the campaign. While she avoids other issues that might excite her MAGA base, she is an anathema to more moderate suburban voters.
Ms Cabanas said she had never advocated for banning books, for example, adding: “I think parents have a right to question age appropriateness. Should it be available for things of an explicit nature?” And she refrained from detailing her personal views on abortion rights, which Democrats plan to make a key component of their 2024 campaign. He refused, saying it was a “decision for the people to make, and what they’re telling us is that’s what they think.” It should be legal. ”
The dilemma for Republicans like Kavanagh is how to distance themselves. They themselves have distanced themselves from Trump, at least to some degree, while still currying favor with Trump’s loyal base. In this year’s battle for control of the U.S. House and Senate, Republican candidates will have to follow the same path, embracing Trump as the nominee in conservative circles while carefully adjusting their rhetoric. Places like Bucks County.
Bucks County is historically a purple region, and turnout will have a big impact on who wins in key battleground states. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Bucks by less than 1 percentage point, but lost the state to Trump. Four years later, Joe Biden did better in the Philadelphia suburbs, beating the Bucks by four points and giving him the edge he needed to take back the state. To win Pennsylvania in the presidential election, Democrats will need high turnout in Philadelphia and its four colored counties to offset Republican gains in the state’s vast rural areas.
On a mild, sunny morning this week in Morrisville, a small borough across the river from New Jersey, Kavanaghs were knocking on doors clutching bundles of campaign fliers, displaying their belongings for running with Mr. Trump’s party. It had been.
A man opened the door and she began to introduce herself, but he interrupted her with, “Are you a Democrat or a Republican?” he asked. She replied, “I’m a Republican.”
“Not in a million years,” he said, closing the door.
James Marcellus, 52, who works in maintenance at Bucks County Community College, is a fierce opponent of President Trump and the current Republican Party. Marcellus, a registered Democrat, sits on his couch at home with his Doberman dog curled up next to him and says he will vote Republican “if they bring me a real candidate that I can trust.” He said he would consider it.
“The Republican Party, I don’t trust anyone that I know of,” Marcellus said.
But Jane Berger, 78, a former social services administrator who describes herself as a moderate Republican, said she was voting for Cabanas and was surprised to hear Democrats calling her MAGA. .
“We need to get over the fear tactics and stop other elected officials talking about Mr. Trump,” she said.
Jeff Holgeir, a member of the Bucks County Republican Committee who has been knocking on Kavanagh’s door, said Democrats have done a good job in recent cycles of labeling all Republican candidates as extremists. . He pointed to the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s 2022 choice for governor, Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator who espouses Christian nationalist beliefs. Democrat Josh Shapiro defeated him overwhelmingly in Bucks County, by 20 percentage points.
“I think what the Democrats are a little bit involved in is, you know, Mastriano-type politics where they want to paint all Republicans under the same MAGA banner, where we all are book banners and I “Anti-abortion, all the Republicans, they’re painting us all with the same brush,” Holgeir said.
Better-known moderate Republicans like Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, whose brother Michael G. It shows they can win in Bucks County even when they’re on top. But for a candidate with a lower name profile like Cabanas, Hallgeir says it’s difficult to convince voters that, “Look, I’m normal.”
Paul McGinty, 49, a high school special education teacher, had long been a registered Republican before President Trump came on the scene. Although he officially switched parties in June 2022 after the Pennsylvania Republican Party chose Mastriano as its nominee, McGinty said he realized Trump was not an “aberration.”
“I don’t think we’ll go back to being a moderate party,” he said. Asked how he would feel about voting for Biden in November, he shrugged, saying he wanted to see “fresh blood” but saying he would vote for the Democratic president as an anti-Trump vote.
The state House district up for election on Tuesday leans more Democratic than the county as a whole, making Prokopiak a favorite to win. Regardless of who wins, the seat will be filled until the end of the year, after which the two candidates are expected to face each other again in November.
But Democrats took nothing for granted in this race. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), the national organization responsible for helping Democrats win state elections, has donated $50,000 to Pennsylvania’s House Democratic Campaign Committee to be used in the contest. Mr. Prokopiak raised enough money ($140,000, his campaign says) to run television and digital ads and send out seven mailers. Cabanas ran a campaign on a shoestring budget and raised about $10,000 with little outside support.
DLCC President Heather Williams said the organization invested in the race because it wanted to secure a Democratic majority to block Republican “radical policies.” Republicans control the Pennsylvania State Senate.
“MAGA is a way to talk about where the Republican Party is today,” Williams said. “I think the association with that has been successful because it’s now synonymous with the Republican Party. You can just say one thing or the other and people know exactly what you’re talking about. .”
The Republican Legislative Campaign Committee did not respond to requests for comment on the race.
Mr. Prokopiak has campaigned primarily on local issues, including raising the state’s minimum wage and building more affordable housing. But he has also made reproductive rights a cornerstone of his own policy platform, mentioning it in nearly all his campaign materials.
Speaking at a small event hosted by the Human Rights Campaign at the home of a supporter, Prokopiak warned that Republicans were trying to disenfranchise people.
“Frankly, we need to stop this extremist agenda that we’re seeing at the school board level, the state legislature level, the state senate level and throughout the Republican Party,” Prokopiak said. “Right now, too many people on the Republican side think they can choose who gets rights and who doesn’t.”
The issue is top of mind for many voters, including Megan Horn, 34, who promised Prokopiak she would vote for her when she showed up on her Levittown doorstep.
“For at least 10 years, our state legislature has been leaning Republican. So that’s concerning as a woman, and it concerns me, too,” Horn said. “My friend has a growing daughter and I don’t think she has that right.”
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