Interesting Times 🐘

The view from the grass being trampled by the elephants:

Democrats pulled off an astonishing upset in a special election for the Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday night, as East Petersburg Mayor James Andrew Malone defeated Republican Josh Parsons by a 50-49 margin to flip a district Donald Trump carried by 15 points last year.

Those toplines, however, don't tell the complete story of just how ancestrally Republican Pennsylvania's 36th District is. Since taking its present form in Lancaster County 40 years ago, the district has always been held by the GOP, and the county as a whole has gone for a Democrat at the presidential level just once since 1856 (Lyndon Johnson just barely won it in 1964).

Local Democrats, however, were undeterred, taking heart—and advice—from their counterparts in Iowa, who flipped a comparably conservative legislative seat in January. That district, though, had gone blue as recently as 2018; the 36th never had.

Sidebar: this special election for the Pennsylvania Senate ties in with the timing of Trump’s latest EO:

Much of the GOP panic surrounds the fact that registered Democrats are heavily out-pacing Republicans in returned mail ballots.

That has been a typical trend since no-excuse mail-ins were approved by the state Legislature in 2019, but Democrats have said their share of ballots sets their candidate – East Petersburg Mayor James Malone – “on a path to flip” the seat.

According to the Lancaster County elections office, registered Democrats had returned about 56% of the 11,448 mail-in ballots received as of Friday, while Republican ballots made up 34%. Independent and third-party voters had returned the remaining 10%.

One can also quite reasonably say Malone won by running against Elmo:

Malone said Saturday that his campaign volunteers have heard concerns from thousands of voters over Musk’s work with the Trump administration to reshape the federal government, which he said has led to “benefits for veterans, retirees and students” being cut “so Elon Musk can get a tax cut.”

“Josh Parsons might be OK with that but I’m not,” Malone said. “On Tuesday, you’ll get to make the choice between more Musk, or Lancaster values.”

And yes, the EO on elections is tied in here, too:

iii) the Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with the DOGE Administrator, shall review each State’s publicly available voter registration list and available records concerning voter list maintenance activities as required by 52 U.S.C. 20507, alongside Federal immigration databases and State records requested, including through subpoena where necessary and authorized by law, for consistency with Federal requirements

The choice between more Musk, or much less, is likely to be quite the campaign issue going forward. I just got this from my Representative in response to an AARP message I signed onto regarding protecting Social Security:

I agree that the current management of the SSA needs to be addressed. We have all heard about, or personally experienced the horror stories of waiting on customer service of a federal agency, especially the SSA, in recent years. Despite major investment, the agency is under-performing, and the ensuing burden imposed on our fellow citizens is unacceptable. This is why my Republican colleagues are pushing for major permitting and processing reform across the federal government; we must ensure proper service is provided and expectations of Americans are met. The social contract between the American people and the federal government over our Social Security benefits is one of the core pillars of trust in our great country and I will always fight to ensure that trust is kept.

That’s Elmo protection language that flies in the face of reality (shuttering offices, ending phone access in the name of “efficiency”). Not the winner they think it is. Losing access to Social Security is not offset by meeting the “expectations of Americans.”

May you live in interesting times.