Voting.
Pennsylvania was at the center of the political universe in 2024 as a key battleground state in the presidential election, and as a result, saw record high voter turnout.
But, most voters stayed home when it came to last week’s primary, even with races that would likely determine who would lead the state’s biggest cities on the ballot.
“The turnout was undoubtedly disappointing,” said Berwood Yost, the director of the Franklin & Marshall College Poll.
Low voter turnout in “off-year” municipal primaries is not uncommon for a variety of reasons. Local races tend to not garner the same attention as those for statewide or federal offices do, despite the bigger impact the positions have on communities across the state.
“They’re for offices that probably affect you most directly and in a most regular way,” Yost said. “And yet the turnout is low.”
Some potential voters often don’t realize which elections are on the ballot, while voter fatigue may also contribute to lower turnout, since Pennsylvania was in the spotlight last year.
In 2025, turnout appears to be lower than the previous two off-year municipal primary elections. Yost told the Capital-Star it looks like about 22% of Democrats voted last week, while 18% of Republicans cast ballots.
Two years ago, 27% of Democrats and 24% Republicans voted in the primary. In 2021, the numbers weren’t much different with 28% of Republicans and 25% of Democrats participating in the primary election, he said.
This year’s primary didn’t feature state Supreme Court candidates on the ballot like those two previous years, which can impact turnout. However, candidates for the Superior and Commonwealth courts were up for a vote.
In addition to the statewide judicial races, several of the largest cities including Pittsburgh, Allentown, and Erie, held mayoral elections, while Philadelphians went to the polls to vote in a closely watched district attorney race.
The Democratic Party is the dominant party in those cities, and the winner of the primary ultimately enters November as the heavy favorite to win a full term in office.
Sam Chen, principal director and chief strategist of The Liddell Group, previously served in various roles for former Republican elected leaders including Gov. Tom Corbett, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, and U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent.
He says he believes there was lower turnout in the GOP primary for a few reasons, including that some in the Republican Party are more complacent since President Donald Trump won the White House and the party claimed control of both chambers of Congress.
“We tend to vote for change, and if everything is great, (some say) I’m not going to the polls,” Chen said.
Even though turnout wasn’t particularly high for Democrats, Larry Ceisler, a public affairs expert, believes they should be optimistic about their chances of winning races in November and potentially 2026.
His example? Bucks County.
The suburban county located just north of Philadelphia is viewed as one of the premier purple counties in Pennsylvania. In 2024, Republicans regained a narrow voter registration edge over Democrats in the county, while Trump became the first Republican candidate for president to win Bucks since 1988.
Despite the recent momentum for the GOP there, Democrats saw higher turnout in the same countywide races in the primary.
Did the primary election signal which way the Democratic Party is moving?
The results in the state’s two biggest cities showed that it isn’t clear which direction Democrats are headed.
In Philadelphia, incumbent progressive District Attorney Larry Krasner cruised to earning the Democratic Party nomination over former Philadelphia Municipal Court Judge Pat Dugan, who was viewed as the moderate candidate.
Turnout was 17%, which is lower than the 2021 primary in the city, the last time the district attorney was on the ballot.
Lauren Cristella, President and CEO of the Committee of Seventy, said the low voter turnout in Philadelphia should “alarm all of us.”
“We cannot dismiss this as ‘just another low-turnout election’ or chalk it up to the ‘Philly Shrug.’ Turnout this low goes well beyond that kind of reasoning, and that kind of thinking lets a broken system off the hook,” Cristella said. “Low turnout like this is a warning sign. It means too many of our neighbors feel disengaged, disillusioned, or disconnected from the process.”
Cristella added that the most recent primary election’s turnout in the city “should be a wake-up call” and called for “bold action,” including changes such as open primaries and “selecting judges based on merit rather than electing them.”
Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, who was backed by various progressive organizations and elected officials, lost his bid for a second term in the Democratic primary to Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor.
Turnout in the city was “slightly higher than 26%,” which was a 2% increase in comparison to the 2021 mayoral primary election, according to WESA.
The experts who spoke with the Capital-Star agreed that each race was unique.
“I think that’s what we’re seeing now. The Democrats are trying to define themselves, trying to figure out what their message is and what they stand for, and find candidates that can express that effectively,” Yost said. “And I don’t think this particular election did anything to settle that question.”
“I don’t think there’s an overarching narrative to this one, besides turnout is low and people don’t care about local elections,” Chen added.
Next test? November’s retention races.
Pennsylvanians in November will vote to fill one open seat on the Superior Court and Commonwealth Court.
However, all eyes are expected to largely be on the vote for retention of three Democratic Supreme Court justices.
Earlier this year, an open seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court garnered a lot of attention and outside spending.
“You saw the way they pursued the open Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin, a pivotal swing state. You’ve got three bites at the apple in Pennsylvania to start changing the dynamics of that court,” Yost said. “And so you better believe Republican operatives are going to be here trying to keep those justices from being retained, but that’s hard to do.”
Justices in retention races in Pennsylvania are often not close, but if efforts from conservative organizations are successful, the Democratic majority of the court could change.
Yost noted since Trump won in November, there has been a swing towards Democratic candidates, including in a special election for a state Senate seat in conservative Lancaster County which was won by a Democrat earlier this year.
“It’s going to be an uphill fight for (Republicans), because I suspect that the turnout is going to favor Democrats,” Yost said. “But I think there’ll be more spending, and there’ll be more conversation and probably more activity around the races. So, we’ll see higher turnout even than we saw in 2023, just because the more money that’s spent and the more aware people are about the campaigns and the candidates, the more likely they are to vote.”
