Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race keeps getting more interesting... whenever you’re ready to tune in

After a year of jockeying for position, the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Patrick Toomey is really starting to intensify in Pennsylvania. Here, the Capitol is seen on a rainy Election Day morning in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The shape-shifting in Pennsylvania’s 2022 U.S. Senate race would make a lava lamp proud.

In the last two weeks, in the Republican campaign alone, we’ve: A) lost the candidate many observers saw as the nominal Republican primary front-runner after a very public child custody dispute; B) seen a television personality who nobody knew was a Pennsylvanian hop in; C) had at least two other potentially top-tier candidates acknowledge they may still enter the fray.

The Democrats, meanwhile, have their own four-person field chugging along toward this winter’s filing period, led by the ever-unconventional Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, and the Congressman from central casting, U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb.

The primary winners will compete over next summer and fall for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Pat Toomey, who announced his retirement from electoral politics last year. No pressure, but the Pennsylvania seat is also seen as one of a handful nationwide that is likely to define who has majority control of the Senate come 2023.

For that reason, both parties also face the added challenge of trying to maximize enthusiasm among their base voters, while not scaring away the likely deciders in Pennsylvania’s purple center.

“It really is sort of a dimmer switch kind of approach, right?” said Stephen Medvic, professor of government at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. “You want to just turn the knob a little bit, just enough to get the nomination but not so much that it might be a burden on you in the general election... I’ll be curious to see how capable they (the candidates) are of walking that line.”

Here’s a party-by-party look at the current lay of the land in those races, and how veteran strategists in both parties feel about them with about three months to go before the primary fields are formally set.

The Republicans.

This race is so fluid, it’s almost as if it really hasn’t started yet.

Sean Parnell, a 2020 Congressional candidate who was carrying the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, suspended his campaign in November after a public child custody hearing in which his ex-wife testified to intermittent episodes of violence and rage that many believe have rendered him unelectable.

In the short term, that’s good news for GOP candidates Jeff Bartos, Carla Sands and Kathy Barnette.

But then, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the heart surgeon-turned-daytime-television-host, decided that he wanted to try electoral politics a try and that Pennsylvania would be a good place to do it.

David McCormick, a Connecticut-based hedge fund leader who was son of the longtime chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of High Education James McCormick, has told people he is preparing to enter the race.

And finally, former Congressman Keith Rothfus, from Allegheny County in a primary field that currently lacks anyone west of Cumberland County, is said to be kicking the tires on a potential campaign.

Nobody looks like a certifiable front-runner at this point - in the latest independent polling on the race, only Parnell had topped 10 percent - but Republican leaders are optimistic that there are several good candidates here that statewide voters can rally around in a general election.

“Each of those candidates has a unique personality and a unique path to victory, and I think they’re all very capable of winning in November, absolutely,” said veteran Republican strategist Charlie O’Neill.

He and others pin that belief on two primary factors: their belief that, as of this moment, it looks like the traditional mid-term edge for the party out-of-power in the White House has a good chance to be in play for 2022; and, the fact that Bartos, McCormick, Oz and Sands all have the ability to self-fund or raise funds to mount credible campaigns.

There are a couple of interesting dynamics, not the least of which are when and how will Trump re-engage, and residency.

On the latter point, McCormick would literally be moving into the state to run. Consultant Mike DeVanney told Politico this week that McCormick recently purchased a house in Allegheny County, where he started the online auction firm FreeMarkets earlier in his career, and he also owns a family farm in Bloomsburg. Sands - while a Cumberland County native - spent most of her adult life in California until moving back to Pennsylvania earlier this year, and Oz has lived in New Jersey though he apparently registered as a Pennsylvania voter within the past year.

None of that may be a deciding factor, but it is something Democrats could try to weaponize in the fall.

Bartos, by virtue of his Lieutenant Governor candidacy in 2018, has established strong roots with many local party leaders across the state. The Philadelphia-area real estate developer has also built up good will through his leadership of a fundraising effort aimed at helping small businesses stay afloat through the coronavirus pandemic. Some say he could be face a backlash from some Trump supporters, however, for his decision to aggressively attack Parnell over the domestic violence allegations.

Sands boasts Trump credentials as the former president’s Ambassador to Denmark, and she would be the only candidate from the increasingly voter-rich South Central part of the state. Borrowing a page from Tom Wolf’s 2014 race for governor, she is also the first up with broadcast ads. As a first-time candidate, however, it remains to be seen how well she will be able to master the politics of a hotly-contested primary.

Barnette, who ran an unsuccessful 2020 race for Congress in Delaware County, has proven to have real appeal to some of Pennsylvania’s hard-core Trump supporters. But without the personal resources of her competitors, some have voiced doubts about her ability to build upon that base

McCormick is positioning himself as a Glenn Youngkin-type of candidate who is able to knit together a strong conservative coalition in a kind of post-Trump way. Currently CEO of the Connecticut-based Bridgewater Associates, he has an accomplished resume that includes both military and business experience. Just like some of his rivals, his biggest hurdle would be getting himself known to Pennsylvanians voters and then mastering swing-state politics.

Oz is the complete curiosity in this field. He has some name recognition by virtue of his television career, but living in that glass house also carries baggage like criticism from many in the medical community for allegedly promoting “snake oil cures” for issues like obesity, or pushing hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID. And then, hardly anybody really knows much about his stands on the issues of the day.

Rothfus, a three-term Congressman from Allegheny County, was pushed out of the U.S. House by Lamb after a 2018 map change forced them into a race against each other. He would attempt to fill the western Pa. void left in the GOP field by Parnell’s exit from the race. But some have doubts about Rothfus’s ability to raise enough funds to stay competitive in this field filled with self-funding millionaires.

The Democrats.

The Democratic field is a little less complicated, but also far from settled.

The frontrunner for most of this year - both in polling and in fundraising - is Fetterman, the unconventional lieutenant governor from Braddock who’s made his name pushing for legalization of recreational use of marijuana, expanding state anti-discrimination protections to cover sexual orientation and gender identity and using his post as chair of the State Board of Pardons to fight for second chances for ex-cons, along with playing his social media accounts like a Stradivarius.

The centrists’ answer to Fetterman is Lamb, the more moderate Democrat with a military / prosecutorial resume who cuts a more traditional profile, and has proven his appeal to independents by winning three separate, but hotly-contested House races since March 2018.

Two candidates from the Philadelphia area - Montgomery County Commissioner Dr. Val Arkoosh, and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, are working hard to emerge as credible alternatives.

The latest public opinion polling on the race, an October 18-24 sounding by Franklin & Marshall, showed Fetterman with 34 percent support among respondents who identified as registered Democrats, nearly triple the 12 percent registered by Lamb. Kenyatta, Arkoosh and state Sen. Sharif Street, another Philadelphian who announced an exploratory committee last spring, all registered 5 percent or below.

Still, with nearly a half-year till primary day, some Democratic strategists reached for this story believe there’s ample room for movement in the race as more voters start to tune in.

Some noted the possibility that Lamb may still, in the long run, draw significant outside support from groups like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee because of a persistent belief that Lamb is the Democratic candidate who would compete the best in a swing state general election.

“Many Democrats don’t want to experiment with a non-traditional candidate in a general election that is so important,” said Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia-based public relations professional who used to help manage Democratic campaigns.

Others argued that Arkoosh and Kenyatta’s campaigns still have a chance to grow, though both must establish this winter that their loyal bases can translate into the fundraising needed to get their messages to a statewide primary audience.

To put that in context, according to the latest financial reports on file with the Federal Election Commission, while Fetterman had more than $4.2 million on hand as of Sept. 30 and Lamb held about $2.2 million, Arkoosh used personal contributions to get her totals past $1 million, and Kenyatta only held $318,000.

Pennsylvania Democrats, despite the party’s disappointing performances this fall in statewide races in Virginia and New Jersey, are still full of hope that they’ll still be in position to win the Senate seat here next fall.

J.J. Balaban, a veteran party operative from Philadelphia, argued if President Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats keep delivering on promises like the recently-passed infrastructure bill and the pandemic finally gets under control, there will be reason for many voters to be in a much better mood by next fall.

“When people ask themselves in November of 2022 are you better off than you were two years ago, the answer is likely, with most Pennsylvanians, ‘Yes. Yes, I am better off. I’m better because of COVID. I’m better off because of the American Rescue Plan. I’m better off because of the infrastructure bill.’” he said.

“To be clear, there’s a whole communications effort that has to happen and people have to feel it,” Balaban added. “But there are things that people can say: ‘Oh, this is what we voted for and this is what we got.’ The party is looking like it’s going to follow through on enough of its promises.”

Primary day is May 17. The final candidate fields for both parties should be set by late March.

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