Copyright The Philadelphia Inquirer
On off-year Election Days, polling places usually are good places if you’re looking for a little quiet time. That was not the case Tuesday. Whether it was PresidentDonald Trump, or the government shutdown, the allure of the races, or the fabulous November weather, voters showed up in record numbers to cast ballots in state, county, and local elections in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In Philly, 33% of the registered voters — 376,966 — cast ballots, 130,000 more than in 2021, the last off-year election without a mayoral race, the City Commissioners reported. By comparison, however, the Philly voters were slackers: Almost half the registrants voted in each of the city’s four neighboring counties, a certifiable record in Montgomery County. And in the final tally, the turnout in New Jersey could reach 50%, said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University. While not a record, that’s up perhaps 10 percentage points from 2021. “This was really a galvanizing election for us,” she said. “No doubt about it,” she said. “The motivator was Trump. Polling told us this leading up to the race, and voters said so in exit polling.” Lauren Cristella, president and CEO of the election watchdog group Committee of Seventy opined that “hyper polarization” certainly was a factor in energizing voters in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and across the country. Cristella and Koning agreed that the saturation coverage of races in New York City, Virginia, and elsewhere had far-reaching impacts in raising awareness that in many places this was Election Day. In fact, in a social media post that drew widespread attention, if not laughter, Republican Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams wrote on X Tuesday, “We’re getting calls about polls being closed. They are closed because we do not have elections today.” Another major contributor to voter interest was the immense amount of spending, “which really captured people’s attention,” said Cristella. When was the last time a Supreme Court retention election in Pennsylvania drew such interest? Trump was a dominant issue in the Pa. Supreme Court election The Supreme Court retention races in Pennsylvania typically don’t find their way on many electoral radar screens. In fact, only one state high court judge has ever been ousted since such elections began in 1968. But this time campaign spending topped $16 million, primarily from Democrats or allies backing the three justices on the ballot, seeking to maintain a liberal majority to counteract what they view as Trump’s attacks on the rights of Pennsylvanians. Republicans had viewed the election as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to oust three liberal justices. That retention trend remained intact. Trump drew voters to the Jersey gubernatorial race The election of Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mikie Sherrill “was a resounding vote against the Republican Party and Trump’s second term,” said Koning. She said among the issues persuading supporters of the U.S. representative to vote against Republican Jack Ciattarelli included the government shutdown, the White House demolition project, the loss of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, and “negative perceptions of the economy.” She pointed out that after having lost a close race four years ago, this time Ciattarelli was beaten by double digits. Voting in Pennsylvania also had a national flavor In interviews, negative and positive comments about Trump were refrains at polling places in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. “All politics is national,” said Cristella. Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija agreed that the president was a factor in the turnouts, but “It’s not just Donald Trump.” “It’s about people realizing that local power, and these positions, matter.” The high-profile district attorney’s race, won convincingly by incumbent Democrat Larry Krasner, clearly was a lure for Philadelphia voters. Krasner’s margin of victory ended up being 40,000 votes more than all the votes cast by Philadelphians in 2021. Likewise, the district attorney’s race in Bucks County, which was vigorously contested, was a local draw, as were the councilmanic campaigns in Delaware County. The Delco turnout at the very least was the highest in a local election in 10 years, said Jim Allen, the county’s election director. The Bucks County turnout could “quite possibly” have been a record for a local election, said county spokesperson Jim O’Malley. It likely will be a while before final figures are available for Chester County since a snafu forced the county to resort to provisional ballots for some voters. Still, officials were thrilled by the numbers overall. “It’s amazing,” said Makhija. “I’ve never seen it before.”
