With the 2024 primary season in the home stretch – and the presidential contest already set – hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania residents cast their votes in Senate and House races, as well as in presidential and local elections, on Tuesday.
President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, who had been heading for a 2020 rematch for months before securing their parties’ nominations in March, won overwhelming victories in their primaries and faced opponents who had long since dropped out of the race were. But Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s former rival in the Republican primary, still received more than 100,000 votes nationwide.
A long-awaited Senate duel was also officially scheduled when David McCormick and Senator Bob Casey won their uncontested primaries.
And Rep. Summer Lee, a progressive Democrat in her first term, fended off a moderate challenger who had opposed her criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza. While Mr. Biden faced protest votes in a number of states, Ms. Lee’s campaign was one of the first voting tests of Democrats’ stance on the war.
There are three takeaways here.
A progressive Democrat fended off a challenge centered on her criticism of Israel’s military campaign.
Ms. Lee, a first-term progressive Democrat representing a Pittsburgh-area district, was an early critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, where about 34,000 people have died since the war began six months ago. Ms. Lee’s stance on Israel’s military campaign was questioned most notably by Bhavini Patel, a moderate Democrat who opposed Ms. Lee’s approach to the war.
But Ms. Lee emerged victorious, suggesting that public opinion on the war, particularly among Democrats, has shifted significantly toward Israel in the six months since the war began.
Mr. McCormick won an unopposed Republican primary for Senate in Pennsylvania, running against Mr. Casey, the Democratic incumbent. While Mr. McCormick had no rivals this time, his victory represents a redemption of sorts after his defeat in his first state Senate primary in 2022.
He represents Republicans’ best chance yet of unseating Mr. Casey, an 18-year incumbent who previously ran for re-election. He defeated his former Republican opponent by 13 points in 2018, and an analysis by the Cook Political Report suggests the race leans toward Democrats.
Mr. Trump helped thwart Mr. McCormick’s first election victory when he defeated an opposing candidate, prominent physician Dr. Mehmet Oz, supported. In a race that was on a knife edge, Trump’s support for Dr. Oz and his violent attacks against Mr. McCormick as decisive – Dr. Oz eked out a victory by less than a thousand votes.
Mr. McCormick has earned Mr. Trump’s support for the upcoming fight against Mr. Casey, and they will share adjacent spots at the top of the Pennsylvania vote in November.
“Scranton Joe” Biden sails to victory. Trump faces resistance from Haley objectors.
Mr. Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, received nearly 95 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, securing a commanding lead in a key battleground state. Rep. Dean Phillips, who ran in the election but dropped out of the race last month, received about 5 percent of the vote.
Mr. Trump also won a decisive primary victory, but many Republican voters continued to express dissatisfaction with the former president. At least 100,000 voters voted for Ms. Haley, who had been Trump’s main rival in the primaries before dropping out of the race last month.
Tuesday’s results suggest that Mr. Biden is on firmer footing with the Democratic base in Pennsylvania than in other battleground states such as Michigan, where the president has faced a significant number of protest votes focused on his handling of the war concentrated in Gaza.
The Haley vote suggests that Trump may have some work to do to bring his voters back to his side in the fall.
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2024-04-24 06:22:47
www.nytimes.com