Next year's battle for the White House will once again come down to just a handful of states, and one of those states will be Pennsylvania.
And if Donald Trump is the GOP nominee once more, there's every reason to think he'll try to steal Pennsylvania's electoral votes, just like he sought to do in 2020—and was just indicted for.
Three years ago, our sturdiest backstop was the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which conclusively shut down Trump's many bogus lawsuits that sought to overturn the election. We need to make sure the state's highest court stands ready to safeguard democracy yet again, which is why Daily Kos is proudly endorsing Judge Dan McCaffery in the Nov. 7 race to fill a critical vacant seat.
McCaffery is an unimpeachable jurist who has sat on the bench for a decade, winning election as an appeals court judge in 2019. He's the son of immigrants who fled violence in their native Ireland, an Army veteran, a West Point graduate, and a former prosecutor. He has the support of Planned Parenthood, labor unions across the state, and the state Democratic Party. And he earned the highest possible rating from the Pennsylvania Bar Association. In short, he's a fair-minded, independent judge who can be trusted to do the right thing.
Not so his Republican opponent. Judge Carolyn Carluccio not only holds extreme anti-abortion views, she's tried to conceal them by stripping references to her promise to be a "Defender" of "All Life Under the Law" from her campaign website. Even more troubling, she suggested without any evidence that mail voting could lead to fraud and even refused to answer directly when the Philadelphia Inquirer asked if she thought the 2022 and 2022 elections were "free and fair." That sounds like exactly the sort of judge Trump would want to have in his corner.
It goes without saying that the stakes in 2024 are as high as they come, which makes this fall's contest an extremely high-stakes affair as well. Right now, Democrats hold a 4-2 majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, meaning that if Republicans flip this seat (which became vacant after Democrat Max Baer died last year), they'll shrink that edge to 4-3. That's way too close for comfort, especially if there's ever an absence, a recusal, or another vacancy.
And it wasn't too long ago that Republicans controlled the court—it was only in 2015 that Democrats were able to take it back. Republicans have never accepted the legitimacy of that new Democratic majority and even threatened to impeach Democratic justices after they struck down the GOP's gerrymandered maps a few years ago, so we know they're going to fight like hell to regain power.
In Wisconsin, we just saw how low conservatives will stoop to win a state Supreme Court seat—they even literally ran a shot-for-shot remake of the infamous Willie Horton ad. Pennsylvania Republicans will fight just as dirty.
That's why we need to do everything we can to help McCaffery win in November. The best antidote to corporate dark money is grassroots people power, and Daily Kos excels at delivering that.
Donate $20—or whatever you can—right now to elect Dan McCaffery to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court!